German Justice Minister: ISPs must store data for terrorist-hunting, but not for music industry lawsuits

Freddie Freelance sez, "German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries has drawn a line in the sand on the Internet connection data that Germany's requiring be collected since January 1st & hold for 6 months. From Heise Online:"

"Connection information can assist in the prosecution of terrorists and organized criminals but cannot be used to help the music industry pursue its rights under civil law," said the SPD party politician in an interview with Focus, the German news magazine. "Any government that tries to broaden its scope will lose all credibility."

Link (Thanks, Freddie Freelance!)

[#1 posted by zimmerpflanze , January 5, 2008 4:56 AM]

They already lost their credibility (if they ever had any) by introducing this legislation. If it isn't stopped, the MI will one day gain access.

The german Pirate Party (Piratenpartei, disclosure: I am head of PIRATEN NRW, the regional Piratenpartei in the federal state Northrhine-Westfalia) is fighting against it as is the NGO AK Vorratsdatenspeicherung, which just filed a class action suit against this legislation in the name of 25.000 people in front of the constitutional court. Data Retention will have no future in Germany.

[#2 posted by hassan-i-sabbah , January 5, 2008 5:25 AM]

Stealing music is the start on the slippety slope slide to declaring war on the WEST and it's FREEDOMS!

DO IT NOW!!

[#3 posted by cha0tic , January 5, 2008 5:50 AM]

One of the irritating anti-piracy adverts on the front end of DVDs mentions that pirated videos fund organised crime and terrorism and that's why you shouldn't buy Pirate videos. Looks like they've covered their ass then, no matter what the German justice Minister says.

[#4 posted by danegeld , January 5, 2008 6:37 AM]

It's good to hear a politician who knows the difference between criminal and civil law.

[#5 posted by Daemon , January 5, 2008 11:23 AM]

Don't they always describe movie piracy and the like as being run by "organized crime"?

Hmm.

[#6 posted by Svein Olav Nyberg , January 5, 2008 11:35 PM]

You also have

* the danger of unauthorized access
* the sheer number of people who will have authorized access guarantees abuse
* shifts in political climate
* abuse from foreign governments or agencies who also gain access to the data

The Norwegian criminal police have records that should have been deleted six(!) years ago, that still haven't been deleted "due to technical problems". One such old record of a person being [wrongly, to boot] suspected of drug smugling led to that person being detained for drug smuggling in *another* country. Cross-country helpfulness and interesting deals most of us don't know about.