Class action against data storage

Around 35,000 people have filed a lawsuit against Germany's law on data storage, which obliges telecommunications companies to store telephone and Internet data for six months. In the eyes of left-liberal Berliner Zeitung the law is unconstitutional, but the paper doesn't hold out much hope for the success of the lawsuit: "Although this is a German law, all it in fact does is implement an EU directive. If the constitutional court condemned the law as unconstitutional it would start a conflict which it has been at pains to avoid with Europe. So the law falls under European protection of species legislation, so to speak. And as with certain poisonous snakes that enjoy this kind of protection, it is likely to suffice if the poison is extracted from the data storage law. All the court has to do is put a binding guiding principle from the census ruling of 1983 first: 'The Basic Law guarantees the right of the individual to make his own decisions regarding the revelation and use of his personal data.'"

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