20260615 Gegen verfassungswidrige Überwachungspläne

15.06.2026 Gegen verfassungswidrige Überwachungspläne

Together for a life free of surveillance!

A week ago, we had already highlighted the demonstration against the digital expansion of police capabilities and called on people to attend it the day before yesterday. Because with the “Security Package 2.0”, the seemingly perfect surveillance state is knocking at our door. Several of the planned measures violate our Constitution.

Biometric matching against all photos, audio recordings, and other data from the internet,
automated data analysis,
identity verification or determining the whereabouts of suspects or witnesses based on their movement profiles,
training IT products for the police using personal data, the digital powers in police work are intended to enhance “international counterterrorism,”
a stricter Code of Criminal Procedure is intended to allow the use of digital investigative findings in court proceedings,
once again, a third package is set to introduce new data retention measures — that is, the mass, indiscriminate storage of IP addresses and ports of all internet users, which the Federal Constitutional Court has repeatedly ruled unconstitutional.

We know this for a fact when it comes to data retention, because the Federal Constitutional Court (and even the European Court of Justice) has already struck down laws mandating data retention as unconstitutional on multiple occasions. There must never be unwarranted surveillance of the communications of everyone in the country. Simply ignoring the BVerfG’s 2010 ruling and intensifying this surveillance once again — and through the other measures mentioned — shows that the state is deliberately acting in violation of the constitution.

The speeches at the opening rally at the Wahrschauer Straße S-Bahn station and at the closing rally in Kreuzberg were equally resolute. "These proposed laws are every data protection advocate’s nightmare, because they undermine all the achievements of the Basic Law as well as human and fundamental rights: The federal government is racing full speed toward a surveillance state," explained Hartmut Brückner of the federal executive board of Rote Hilfe e. V. The speakers also pointed out that the use of dystopian programs like Palantir & Co. utilizes massive amounts of data for centralized analysis, thereby once again targeting those who are already marginalized in society. AI reproduces and exacerbates discriminatory state action. The new powers granted to the police and the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) further reduce refugees to mere objects of racist policies and further restrict their already limited options for action.

From 2007 to 2011, the “Freedom Not Fear” demonstrations served as a focal point against the then-proposed VDS. Let us take the “Security Package 2.0” as an opportunity to build a strong civil society movement against the further expansion of the surveillance state.