<!--/*SC*/DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"/*EC*/-->
<html><head><style type="text/css"><!--div#me39089 DIV {margin:0px; }--></style><title></title><style type="text/css"><!--body{padding:1ex;margin:0px;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:small;}a[href]{color:-moz-hyperlinktext !important;text-decoration:-moz-anchor-decoration;}blockquote{margin:0;border-left:2px solid #144fae;padding-left:1em;}blockquote blockquote{border-color:#006312;}blockquote blockquote blockquote{border-color:#540000;}--></style></head><body><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium;" dir="ltr"><div class="defangedMessage">
<div id="me39089">
<div>Thanks Aloo. The "Right to be Forgotten" as they say should indeed be a basic constitutional right.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Waudo</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div>On Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:57 -0800, "Leonard Aloo" <l_aloo@yahoo.com> wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="me39089QuoteMessage"><!--/*SC*/defang_html/*EC*/--><!--/*SC*/defang_head/*EC*/--><!--/*SC*//defang_head/*EC*/--><!--/*SC*/defang_body/*EC*/-->
<div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<div>
<h1><!--/*SC*/defang_font size="3"/*EC*/--><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This may be of interest to some listers.</span><!--/*SC*//defang_font/*EC*/--></span></h1>
Regards,<br>
<br>
Leonard Obura Aloo<br>
<br>
<h1>German high court: law ordering phone, e-mail traffic data retention violates constitution</h1>
<div class="me39089byline">
<p class="me39089clearfix"><span class="me39089byline me39089bordered">MELISSA EDDY</span> <span class="me39089titleline"><span id="me39089lw_1267603666_0" class="me39089yshortcuts">Associated Press</span> Writer</span></p>
<p class="me39089date">5:23 AM EST, March 2, 2010</p>
</div>
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's highest court <span id="me39089lw_1267603666_1" class="me39089yshortcuts" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;">on Tuesday</span> overturned a law allowing authorities to retain data on <span id="me39089lw_1267603666_2" class="me39089yshortcuts" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;">telephone calls</span> and e-mail traffic for help in tracking criminal networks.<br>
<br>
A law ordering data on calls and e-mail exchanges be retained for six months for possible use by criminal authorities violated Germans' <span id="me39089lw_1267603666_3" class="me39089yshortcuts" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;">constitutional right</span> to private correspondence and must be revised, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled.<br>
<br>
In its ruling, the court said the law failed to sufficiently balance the need for personal privacy against that for providing security, although it did not rule out data retention in principle.<br>
<br>
"The disputed instructions neither provided a sufficient level of data security, nor sufficiently limited the possible uses of the data," the court said.<br>
<br>
Nearly 35,000 Germans had appealed to the court to overturn the law, which stems from a 2006 <span id="me39089lw_1267603666_4" class="me39089yshortcuts">European Union</span> anti-terrorism directive requiring telecommunications companies to retain phone data and Internet logs for a minimum of six months in case they are needed for <span id="me39089lw_1267603666_5" class="me39089yshortcuts" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;">criminal investigations</span>.<br>
<br>
The court upheld the EU directive, saying the problem lay instead with how the German parliament chose to interpret it.<br>
<br>
Under the German law, which went into effect Jan. 2008, information about all calls from mobile or <span id="me39089lw_1267603666_6" class="me39089yshortcuts">landline phones</span> was retained for six months, including who called whom, from where and for how long.<br>
<br>
The following year, that law was expanded to include the data surrounding all contact via e-mail.<br>
<br>
Although the laws forbid authorities from retaining the contents of either form of communication, they met with fierce opposition from <span id="me39089lw_1267603666_7" class="me39089yshortcuts">civil rights groups</span>.<br>
<br>
"Massive amounts of data about German citizens who pose no threat and are not suspects is being retained," Germany's commissioner for <span id="me39089lw_1267603666_8" class="me39089yshortcuts" style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;">data security issues</span>, Peter Schaar, told ARD's morning show.<br>
<br>
Experts argue the information is crucial to being able to trace crimes involving heavy use of the Internet, including tracking terror networks and pursuing child pornography.<br>
<br>
_______<br>
<br>
Associated Press writer Verena Schmitt-Roschmann contributed to this report.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.fox43.com/business/sns-ap-eu-germany-data-retention,0,1005335.story" target="_blank" class="me39089moz-txt-link-freetext" defang_rel="nofollow"><span id="me39089lw_1267603666_9" class="me39089yshortcuts">http://www.fox43.com/business/sns-ap-eu-germany-data-retention,0,1005335.story</span></a></div>
</div>
<br>
<!--/*SC*//defang_body/*EC*/--><!--/*SC*//defang_html/*EC*/-->
<pre>
_______________________________________________
kictanet mailing list
kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke
http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
This message was sent to: emailsignet@mailcan.com
Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/emailsignet%40mailcan.com
</pre>
</blockquote></div>
</div></div></body></html>