Herald: As you all know, this year we didn't have
any summer dream, but more of a summer nightmare and for the first time
in 50 years of the federal republic of Gemany journalists were impeached
for "Landesverrat" (Treason of the nation). It lies back now a few months
and we want to use this opportunity now, to reflect a bit about
what actually happened, once recall the events
and shine light on the back story, but also look at
what happened since then, what the consequences are.
And to do that, please give with me a warm welcome to the founder
and publisher of "Netzpolitik" and our favourite "Landesverräter" (Nation traitor) Markus Beckedahl.
*applaus*
Herald: And...
For all our international guests, if you want to listen to the talk in English
that is totally possible. Please tone into our wonderful
translation at 80 11. Thank you!
Markus: Hello, good morning!
*laughing**applause*
But when you're clapping all the time, I will never finish with my 72 slides.
So... *applause*
Andre can be here unfortunately, he has to lie in the sun,
I mean in the real sun.
*applause*
On the camp, just after the case against us was dropped we have
held a talk, so: The story about all of this investigations
I will hold very briefly. I will more focus on what the findings are,
what we have learned, what would have to change in the laws to avoid
such investigations in the future. Who is still interested in the background story,
as I said, the talks from the camp are online.
Yes, I believe you can download them free of charge.
The story started over a year earlier.
Last year we celebrated the 10th anniversary
and adequately for our 10th anniversary, we received news, that the chancellery
had threatened the members of the NSA-investigation commission in the Bundestag
to press penal charges, because among others in our blog documents had been posted
which were distributed in the context of the investigation commission.
At that time the charges were not pursued. There are rumours,
that Merkel was against it. She was afraid,
that that somehow was bad PR to prosecute the press.
We felt honoured and a bit motivated
to just continue.
In this February we published parts of the state budge documents,
which showed, that the "Verfassungsschutz" (German secret service) was planning
massive analysis of internet contents just like that.
That was interesting, because two year after the start of the Snowden-Leaks
the answer of the government was to increase the budget
and the authority of the secret services to monitor the internet.
We thought, that should better be discussed, before that is just implemented that way.
But a discussion was actually just possible, if all the document were public,
which were confidential to that point.
To us, someone had leaked them. We had a bit space on our servers,
so we published them, sadly we did not get the huge debate in civil society,
we wanted. To put it in other word: It just did not
interest people that much. But it is our philosophy
documents we have not just to quote, but also
if possible, openly provided for all our readers.
We are used to the Internet, we are used to link to the sources.
*applaus*
and we are used, that others should also question our work.
We do not believe, that we are the experts for everything,
and we believe also, that among our readers are many experts,
who can help us, to gain more perspectives on documents from all angles
and for that we all need the originals.
And therefore we upload them to the net, of course on a case by case basis,
if we do not endanger anyone by that.
But, back to the start of this year:
In this April we received another state budget plan,
which we of course published too.
Unfortunately this one did really interest none,
'cause 9:05 am it was online, 9:15 the minister of justice informed,
that he was going to reimplement the "Vorratsdatenspeicherung" (Mass surveillance measures) now,
so our issue just die on that spot. We found it was a pity,
'cause we really wanted to talk about: What is the Verfassungsschutz doing there?
Is this constitutional at all, what they are doing?
Shouldn't we as society not decide first,
if we approve the measures or not?
And, shouldn't maybe the supreme court rule first about it,
if they are even allowed to do so or not?
To put this all in context, what we published there:
state budget, some say, that is somehow comparable with
simply just a cost draft.
After the "Landesverrat" investigation ZEIT ONLINE (news) has published another
piece of the puzzle, namely internal documents of the "Verfassungsschutz"
about XKeyscore. We have published, so to say, the budget planes,
which documented the implementation of this XKeyscore Software,
and another piece of the puzzle came from Kai Biermann and Yassin Musharbash,
I think I'm constantly pronouncing their names wrong. Sorry.
On the 4th of July we hard from a radio station, that a internet service
had published two articles in February and April,
for what they were indicted by the president of the Verfassungsschutz.
It's no fun fact that, one day in advance the Verfassungsschutz law
with more competences for the Verfassungsschutz had passed the parliament.
Possibly there is a correlation, that this story by
such a Verfassungsschutz friendly "Deutschlandfunk" journalist
was placed one day after and not before.
Probably the "Landesverrat" investigations, media coverage
could have led to more people actually having a look at the Verfassungsschutz law,
but it did not happen this way.
We were at first a bit surprised, so we noticed first,
that WE are this internet service apparently, then we thought:
Does this happen often, that such a accusation is filed?
We then called the union for journalists and so on,
to ask about it. We thought they might know more about this stuff. But they were like:
"Well, no idea, happened last time in the 90s or something?"
So we thought... hmmm... strange somehow. So we called on Monday
the Verfassungsschutz and the General Attorney,
to ask about it. They did not want to tell us anything obviously,
and then we blogged about it and waited for it. We knew according to
this article in the Deutschlandfunk it had to do with betraying official secrets.
There is a ruling of the supreme court, to phrase it that way, is would be bad
for our sources, but we as individuals could still get out of this.
And then on the 30th of July, we received a letter, that at least throw over our
daily life in the editorial office a bit.
The general attorney notified us, that investigations concerning "Landesverrat"
against Andre, against our source and me were being conduced and
it already started in May.
So we thought: Well.
*Laughing**applause*
So we then blogged it.
Then we looked up, what does "Landesverrat" actually mean anyway?
*Laughing*
Our lawyers said like: "So, there is something curious going on!
The law about it states: There must be the intention of harming the federal republic."
and we actually wanted a better federal republic,
I mean, we wanted a federal republic, where the basic right we have
were applied! That's the opposite of, what Landesverrat (Treason against the nation) is!
*heavy applause*
And he thought: "Well, if the law is the way it is. We will fight through this in the worst case."
Then we informed ourselfs again: How did "Landesverrat" actually come about?
I mean, one only knew the kind of thing from the Spiegel scandal,
so from history books, it went even further. Erich Kästner and so on,
so a very explosive... well, symbolic phrase!
The short version was: Thursday we received the letter, uploaded it and so on.
Sunday all of the sudden we were in the centre of a small state crisis.
Tuesday the General Attorney resigns.
The Monday after, everything was buried very quickly.
But: Now starts, what all did happened or
how we evaluated the whole thing.
To start with we had a lot of luck.
So we were lucky, that they charged us for "Landesverrat",
so such a symbolic, which instantly generates this connection to
Franz Josef Strauß and the Spiegel Scandal in the heads of many people.
It hadn't been quite as practical, if they didn't charge us with §94 StGB "Landesverrat"
but with §95 "Offenbarung von Staatsgeheimnissen" (revealing of official secrets),
so let alone the Hashtag #offenbarungvonstaatsgeheimnissen would've
been to long. *laughing*
We were even lucky, that the INFORMED us via mail.
As far as we can reconstruct it, it looks a lot like,
that the General Attorney ordered an external report by a professor close to the BND,
who should affirm the view of the Verfassungsschutz,
that we published official secrets,
and if it had turned out that way..., and this BND-professor told the
General Attorney, that he unfortunately hadn't finished yet and
had to go on vacation. But if he had finished,
he would probably come to that conclusion and then through that
we only would have known from a police raid,
that there is something going on in this direction.
Therefore we took the message from that just to be prepare for that.
We didn't think then, that we would in Germany, in a constitutional democracy,
have to be afraid of raid at home and the office
due to our work.
Now we know that, now we are prepared,
if it someday comes to that.
Then we were lucky: David vs Goliath, I mean,
Star Wars was just released. Mr. Maaßen (president of the Verfassungsschutz) would
be the perfect Emperor. *laughing*
We are the rebels, so besides David- Goliath
Star Wars is also quite fitting.
In any case, this huge symbolic, We were just lucky.
We had such a stress test before, 6 years ago.
That time we published internal documents of the "Deutsche Bahn" (German railway).
We could test a bit the mechanics of the new public
in such a David-Goliath situation, Streisand-effect and so on,
and now we could play the same thing in big.
And most importantly the luck we had was,
that this was happening in the "Sommerloch",
So, two weeks before we would have been forgotten about due to the Greek crisis,
two weeks due later the refugees situation, but exactly at that time
when we received this letter, just nothing else happened at all.
Totally great, Thanks!
*laughing**applause*
So but first off we had to prove that we are good citizens,
at the same time, which was the funniest thing,
the government or the "Deutsche Bank" as standard initiative of the BDI
together with the President send us also such a certificate,
'cause we were honoured within the "Deutschland- Land der Ideen"(Germany land of ideas) campaign.
We didn't know at that point what to do with this honouring,
should we even make it public?
Then we thought: How useful, that shows this weird picture
and shows instantly somehow how schizophrenic this is:
Parts of the government pay us tribute, while the other part, well does the same,
but doesn't intended it that way.
*laughing*
Well, in any case something happens, that we could have known,
but we didn't: The Admin was on vacation and the blog was gone.
We then needed a mirror page, where at least the information
could still be found.
Then something happen, which I never experienced before:
I couldn't use Twitter any more, for example, 'cause there were to many
informations with our Hashtag and so on,
my Browser shut down all the time, I had to shut down for
a few hours, but there was a huge crowd declaring solidarity,
incountable Supertweets, eg. here from @NeinQuarterly and also many other things,
Links to our donation site, because we had obviously problems, if we had to fight
this, then we would have needed a lot of money,
for the lawyers alone and we were complete underfunded at that time.
In any case, then we had this funny situation, that
all of the sudden even our IBAN-number became a trending topic.
Our bank was proud to. *laughing*
And at the same time to illustrate the summer void of news, that was one of
several days "tagesschau.de", where you got the impression that there was nothing else;
Probably nothing else was happening at that time, I haven't hear of anything,
but here you also don't see anything.
Something else: Very nice was also the solidarity of the ZDF heute-jornal.
They had written netzpolitik.org instead of heute.de
*laughing**big applause*
Well, and the server was down again. *laughing*
Now we have a new one. *laughing*
So, in case that happens again, we could use a bit more capacity.
Well, so we had to present ourselfs also somehow
as even better citizens. *laughing**applause*
And then it was okay, I mean the most of the press had our back.
We had hoped so, but we did not expect this huge solidarity at all.
That was really great for sure, to know they have your back
and more than anything it's great, when all the things
you normally watch yourself are reporting about you,
such as extra3, heute-show and so on. (comedy news shows) The only sad thing was,
that we were so deep in the middle of summer, that they did not had any TV-episodes,
but they had to do it online.
Well, and then there was a little uprising of the CDU-members of parliament, who did
not understand why so many people showed their solidarity to us.
Jens Koeppen on the upper left is by the way the the head of the commission for
digital agenda in the Bundestag. (Parliament)
That also took just one day. The important people in the CDU,
had their colleges under control again right the next day,
and were like: "That's a game we can't win!"
It was also very funny, Mr. Bosbach declared immediately 1,5 days later:
"However inexplicable the initiation of the investigation
against the blog "netzpolitik.org" was for actual, legal reasons..."
Then he was of course attacking the social democrates.
But this was at least for us the signal: Okay, the government is on the retreat.
Not everyone did get the hint:
Hans-Peter Uhl thought still, that now ISIS could draw from
budget plans conclusions how the Verfassungsschutz was organised.
Well, Hans-Peter Uhl has also some other problems, I think.
*laughing*
In any case, this came in quite handy for us. It was summer. We were a few from
our team and a few friends, who wanted absolutely to rally.
We thought first, well, okay a rally there will be coming the few well known people.
Anyway we did a demonstration. 2500 people were there!
*laughing* Also very helpful to
to create the right images.
But we actually thought: after two days it is all over. Heiko Maas the minister
of justice had to cut his vacation short for the first time,
went to the press, like: "Everything under control, keep calm
and carry on!" Some interview request were rejected.
We partied and, well, on the next day we were actually in a state scandal,
which took almost international proportions.
To understand it must be said, that Germany was always
pointing fingers on the international stage,
when ever there was a oppressive regime,
where journalists and bloggers were suppressed somehow.
Well and now there was such a case in Germany,
where journalist were threatened with investigations,
where usually immediately the foreign minister would intervene.
That was somehow funny even for us. We appeared everywhere:
Here from Nepal to Greek, so in all the continents,
almost from all counties we received articles.
We didn't get them all processed, so we were called
every minute for some question from the most bizarre media
an the planet. We were very proud to be in the "Titanic" (Satire magazine),
with this page of "Landesverrateslust"
*laughing* (parody of gardening magazine "Landlust")
Once "Titanic". Well, the FAZ (frankfurt common newspaper) had a small campaign against us.
We thought that was cute, because we thought, we can't lose anything,
when a news paper that is 10 times as big
in one unearthly bad article article after the other tries to explain,
that we actually are the bad guys and not the good ones
and then use words like: "The democracy didn't mean anything to
netzpolitik.org or other swarm-like collective intelligent beings anyway,
look at child pornography, or telecommunications data retention, or copyright."
Or the head of FAZ-Feuilleton about some animal, that was in our office,
because it was a gift from Anna from Japan. The "mascot" got half a page
of scribbling, while we just thought: "what mascot???"
We hadn't even noticed it standing there.
Well, in any case that was a very funny thing, but at the same time also
somehow completely bizarre. So the FAZ- politics editors had almost
always exactly the opposite opinion
and pointed at us and said: "That are the activists, we are the journalists!"
And tried to denounce therefore our press right privilege.
On the other hand we had thought this through the last years.
We had the official confirmation of the government, the "Bundespressekonferenz"
and Parliament, that we were journalists, because they had given us
IDs as journalists.
Then there was some small subplot:
We had thrown out a team of Russia Today,
due to the fact that they were the only ones, that did not notify us in advance
and all of the sudden entered the office, started to film and we had the principle
-that wasn't even against Russia- but we would not talk to government
controlled media trying to exploit us to somehow relativise the freedom of the
press in the own country. *applause*
So we said we would not talk to media of governments *applause*
of countries that suppress journalists, that threaten journalists with death.
And Russia is one of those. We twittered that.
And then we had suddenly all conspiracy theorists
who were... I have never received so many death threats
before, because somehow I was responsibly for the Ukraine conflict,
because I was 13 years ago in the Green party youth. *laughing*
So I didn't really get it, but political education was
reduced drastically in the last years, I think
we need there a bit more money from the state budget.
*applause* But let's look at the still unsolved puzzle:
We still wonder: why? *laughing*
So, why did the General Attorney start the investigations in the first place,
if everyone could have seen, that there is no will
to harm the republic at all?!
So we can only imagine, that there must have been some political pressure
from the Verfassungsschutz, from the ministry of internal affairs,
maybe from the chancellery.
But the question is also, why would anyone want to be responsible for that?
And also a question was, that later become obvious:
When we heard the news in the "Deutschlandfunk", that because of
revealing official secrets they started investigations against our source,
we read the "Cicero"-ruling of 2007 very carefully.
2005 there are a house search at "Cicero", this monthly magazine.
It was about revealing of official secrets, some secrets which were disclosed
to journalists and they, federal police and Schily, tried back then to
find hint on the source using a raid in in the editorial office.
The supreme court ruled 2007: "The revealing of official secrets are no
legitimate reason for a raid."
So they already started our investigation on a higher level,
just to test if they could get away with it.
If the supreme court has already forbidden the other thing,
let's just try "Landesverrat" or something.
We would have liked for the case to be continued
to get a ruling, but sadly the investigations were discontinued
very fast, which took the opportunity
to just clarify this by the courts.
Especially to clarify that we had the right to do that at all times.
Then, Hans-Georg Maaßen, our president of the Verfassungsschutz,
the emperor and so on, had already declared that on the 4th of May,
on the symposium of the Verfassungsschutz, where by the way the Deutschlandfunk journalist
was moderating, which later uncovered the first hint.
He was saying back then, that our work or the leaking with the help of journalists
would damage the work of the secret services a great deal.
Furthermore he was talking about some secret information being printed by
the media. Actually, we did never have a printing press, we just
put it out in the Internet, but okay...
We did talk this as a reason to release a new sticker series,
you can get some later, at front left. *applause*
It was very interesting to, how Maaßen tried to make excuses
all the time, that he was innocent, that he just did his duty and
that someone had to do this.
We now know, that in the last years there were just
just three cases were filed, concerning well, revealing official secrets,
or generally the leaking of documents to journalists from the
secret sevices. Three cases and two of them were us.
*applause* The BND did do something like this yet.
But he was saying: "That is completely normal!!" Tried to suggest, that that was
completely usual procedure and that he by the way had nothing to do
with it, because the charges were pressed against unknown.
At some point we got the document,
it looked like this. Which is like right in your face.
This charge against unknown,
even featuring our names.
More than anything the Verfassungsschutz had managed
in two files to write my name two times wrong.
*laughing*
I mean luckily the is not a single person in Germany
that would have such a name, but the problem was,
what would it mean, if your were suspected due to
a wrong name?
Okay, I have to hurry a bit!
Our lawyers later only got censored documents, better to say...
-hu? why did it proceed atomatically?-
... just censored files, we think that all the time they kept,
two versions parallel.
There are some notices of conversations between General Attorney and
Verfassungsschutz, which were held by phone or email,
but do not appear there.
Our lawyers found that to be very curious, we would have liked to publish
files, but we are not allowed to see them, cause they are ranged as more secret
than the documents, we published,
'cause the Verfassungsschutz.... *applause*
The Verfassungsschutz had to explain or had notified the General Attorney in the files
why we had revealed relevant secrets and
well, the assessment of the Verfassungsschutz is more secret than
the documents we published. So incredibly bizzare!
At some point we noticed that, oh, investigations of "Landesverrat" mean,
they can legally tap us actually since 2, 3 months.
That was possible, but for a few moments it felt for us like a problem...
-well, hu, what just happened? -
...like a problem, because we thought, okay now we could have a real
problem, if they bugged everything at our place.
They told us afterwards, that the BKA (police) just had done
low level investigations, well, hu, you can trust them more or less
at least I think. The problem is, how believable is the statement of
the Government, that the Verfassungsschutz
did not watch us? I mean who should've controlled that?
If you want know more about the risks ask (mandatory drug cover statement) the victims of the NSU.
(Neonazi underground killer group) *aplause*
Then we had the problem, that many parts of the government didn't...
have not told the truth in the media.
Here is Emily Haber, secretary of security in the ministry of internal affairs,
who said: "Well, yes, the president of the Verfassungsschutz has
stopped at some point" and that was it.
Else we had never known.
Afterwards it became clear, that half of the ministry for internal affairs
was informed about the cases and investigations and so on.
(Minister) Thomas de Maizière of course didn't noticed anything, Quote:
"The necessary criminal investigation of the culprit or culprits only
gain any political importance due to the media coverage and discussion,
which then made it necessary to personally inform the minister."
This is how you describe the system of Thomas de Maizère.
Fun Fact: The husband of Emily Haber is a diplomat, who was spied on
in the context of the BND-Selectors scandal.
Well, then there was a huge "Bundespressekonferenz" about this (press conference with deputies of the government)
on Monday, after we published it, over one hour with a lot of
questions. Here the Speaker for the BMI was like: "Well I talked to everyone,
who had a relevant position, and nobody knew anything" right?
That is a most brilliant rhetoric, in other words: obfuscation tactic.
Later it became clear: At least after the 21th April the government knew
the plans and the investigations and we assume, that
they at that point they discussed strategies.
But who took part, we don't know, because the chancellery does not
take records of such important meetings.
But then the Green party questioned the ministers of the government
one by one, whoms deputies had taken part and
the different ministries had to answer,
that there deputies had been there, so it was possible to tell,
who had been there, but none wanted to take responsibility.
In addition the Green party asked, if it was normal to talk about such
procedures with foreseeable large, political meaning
without reports or taking any records,
and the government was like: Well, yes that's normal, no panic!
The ministry of justice knew already two months in advance
including the minister, who declared after the media coverage then,
that this had to be ended now very fast.
We just wonder why didn't he do that before?
Well, I have to hurry!
Let's come to...
-hu? Never happened before!
Need a new Laptop!-
What do we learn? Our requests:
First off, we need a new definition of official secrets.
At the moment the authorities decide for themself, what is a secret, and we think
that is wrong! We need a new definition of "Staatsgeheimnis",
so that developments of history in the public interest are not
secrets and are not covered by either §94 "Landesverrat",
or §95 "Offenbarung von Staatsgeheimissen" (revealing of official secrets)
*applause* That would help journalists,
to be threatened by this sword of Damocles (A danger constantly hovering over you).
We need a protection of whistle blowers act, that deserved that name!
Germany is a developing country, when it comes to that.
That can not be! yeayea, I'll hurry!
Besides we were lucky, Andre and I are both professional journalists in our
editorial office, but there are others, who write
for us voluntarily. If they had published this story,
they wouldn't have had the same rights we did, for example
they had not right to remain silent, or better a court
had to clarify that, if they have, because
The legal definition for freedom of the press talks about profession.
We say: Freedom of the press has to apply for everyone, who submits to journalistic
standards and duties and work as a journalist and not just for those,
who do this for money! *huge applause*
Also to insure the protection of the sources,
the Telecommunications data retention has to go! There are many other reasons
for that, but I say it now just from a journalistic perspective.
*applause* And most importantly the new law against
"Datenhelerei" has to go! And we will support a lawsuit against it!
We need to quit mass surveillance
and to control the secret services!
So the real Scandal, besides "Landesverrat" is,
that two years after the Snowden leaks
this is seen as test for future cases, and the surveillance is increasing
massively supported by the government! What we wanted to say:
Never give up! We will continue, despite mass surveillance and so on.
We were a little disappointed that the campaign did not last so long,
we had still a lot of ideas, what we could do.
We would be glad to receive more documents and as a Thanks for the investigations
we leaked the BND-strategies for extending the net surveillance.
You can read all on our page. *applause*
And so, Thanks to all of you for your support!
It helped a great deal to have so many supporters
in the civil society, in the media, in our communities
else we would not have survived this.
So, if you are in favour of our work, you can support us:
netzpolitik.org/spenden or we have left over some
very cool T-shirts and Hoodies and bags. There are somewhere...
Where are they? A right! Here in front. There are stickers, too,
featuring Hans-Georg Maaßen, else... *laughing*
Thank you very much! Do more "Landesverrat" and have fun on the congress!
*applause*
*music*
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