G7 data leak: Pirate Party files complaint against house search
After the confiscation of server copies following the leak of G7 police documents, the Pirate Party has taken legal action against the “scandalous” action.
The Pirate Party has filed a complaint against the decision of the Munich District Court to search a house after a leak of confidential police documents on the 2015 G7 summit. The complaint is based on Section 304 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO). “The procedure is scandalous in many respects,” said Anne Herpertz, national chairwoman of the German Pirate Party, explaining the legal resistance. “In our opinion, the investigative authorities and the Munich district court made a number of blatant mistakes.”
The police threatened to confiscate two entire servers after the Munich public prosecutor got the process rolling. The party then issued copies of the two Internet computers in order to be able to continue operating at least the services processed via them without lengthy interruptions. Sensitive private data of members also got into the hands of the investigators.
Under the protection of the Basic Law?
“The decision and the subsequent confiscation are extremely questionable – both in terms of content and form,” Herpertz explained now, after the party had already severely criticized the rabid crackdown by the police and public prosecutor’s office immediately after the incident as insanity. The law enforcement officers copied and took away data that “clearly has nothing to do with the investigation”.
The party leader complained that the entire action was disproportionate. “The worst thing, however, is that the court did not take into account that certain data is particularly worthy of protection and that the Pirate Party is under the special protection of the Basic Law – especially in relation to executive bodies.” The political dimension of this process is immense. The pirates are therefore demanding that the confiscation order be revoked and that the data collected be deleted.
Mission documents on Indymedia
The search was triggered: In the run-up to the G7 summit at Schloss Elmau at the end of June, confidential operational documents relating to the previous meeting of the leaders of the major industrialized countries at the same location appeared on the Indymedia platform, which is classified as left-wing extremist. The classified material included an operational order with lists of police units and their digital radio channels, as well as executive cell phone numbers. According to Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD), the leak had no impact on the current G7 deployment plan.
A CryptPad instance hosted by the Pirate Party was used to publish the documents classified as confidential. This allows users to share files publicly and free of charge.
The prosecutor’s office did not comment on the allegations, according to agency reports. Due to certain wording in the search warrant, which the prosecutors are currently keeping under wraps for procedural reasons, the Pirate Party also suspects “that the court accepted the content of the public prosecutor’s application without examining it.” In doing so, the authority would have violated its statutory control obligation.
(axk)
