under the challenged provisions alone; instead, such measures loom as their indirect
effect in conjunction with further provisions. The fact remains, however, that the
counter-terrorism database increases the probability of such measures.
(3) The counter-terrorism database takes on a particular severity of interference to
the extent that in emergencies, it also permits a transfer of information between intelligence services and the police in which the information may be used directly to defend
against specific threats, and therefore also for operational purposes.
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b) The establishment of the counter-terrorism database is, in general, compatible
with the prohibition of disproportionate measures. The severity of the interference for
the persons concerned is countered by the public interest in allowing, when investigating and combating international terrorism, a selective exchange of information between the various security agencies, and more accurate assessments in order to defend against the threat in important emergencies.
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The legislature may attribute significant importance to establishing a central joint
database in order to selectively exchange information for investigating and combating
international terrorism. If only because of the number of agencies engaged in these
tasks, ensuring an expedient exchange of findings among them is of particular significance. […]
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Preventing and prosecuting terrorist offences that are organised internationally and
committed in order to propagate fear and terror poses particular challenges for the
governmental authorities who are responsible for that task. Because such offences
are especially difficult to detect, and the target persons often act in a highly conspiratorial manner, the security agencies’ success in effectively performing their tasks depends especially on the possibility that important information held by one agency can
also be accessed by other agencies, and become meaningful information and provide meaningful overviews of a situation through pooling and matching of the various
data from diffuse individual findings. It is obvious that a specially structured database
that includes basic profiles of persons who have come to the authorities’ attention, together with indications of which agencies can provide information about a given person, can significantly improve the performance of the authorities’ tasks. It is also
sound to assume that in serious emergencies, the authorities must have direct access to certain information from other authorities in order to be able to perform a first
assessment of the threat and thus to permit appropriate further measures.
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The great importance that effectively combating terrorism has for a democratic and
free society must be taken into account in assessing the significance of such a database. Crimes with terrorist characteristics, at which the Counter-Terrorism Database
Act is directed (see D. III. 1. above), aim to destabilise the community, and in so doing encompass attacks on the life and limb of random third parties, in a ruthless instrumentalisation of other human beings. They are directed against the keystones of
the constitutional order and the community as a whole. It is a requirement of our constitutional order not to view such attacks as acts of war or states of emergency, which
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