tion Protection Act. According to these provisions, it is required in principle that by
these means information can be obtained on efforts or activities that are relevant to
the protection of the constitution or the sources necessary to obtain such information.
Insofar as measures according to the impugned provision constitute an encroachment on the secrecy of correspondence, post and telecommunication, or are equivalent to such encroachment in terms of their nature and grievousness, according to
§ 5.2 no. 11 sentence 2 of the North Rhine-Westphalia Constitution Protection Act,
they are however only permissible under the preconditions of the Act Restricting the
Secrecy of Correspondence, Post and Telecommunication, Article 10 Act (Gesetz zur
Beschränkung des Brief-, Post- und Fernmeldegeheimnisses (Artikel 10-Gesetz – G
10)); below: Act re Article 10 of the Basic Law).
e) Only the complainants re 2 also address § 17 of the North Rhine-Westphalia Constitution Protection Act, which regulates the transmission of personal data by the constitution protection authority, in connection with measures according to § 5.2 no. 11 of
the North Rhine-Westphalia Constitution Protection Act.
13
2. Both constitutional complaints further address § 5.3 of the North RhineWestphalia Constitution Protection Act. The subject-matter of this provision is the notification of the person concerned subsequent to the deployment by intelligence services of the means regulated in § 5.2 of the North Rhine-Westphalia Constitution
Protection Act. Sentence 1 of this section contains an obligation to, in principle, notify,
with regard to which sentence 2 makes provision for several exceptions.
14
3. Only the complainants re 1 address § 5a.1 of the North Rhine-Westphalia Constitution Protection Act. This provision empowers the constitution protection authority to
obtain information from financial institutions on participants in payment transactions
and on monetary movements and investments. The precondition is the existence of
factual indications of grievous dangers to the interests protected by the constitution
protection authority.
15
An empowerment to collect account contents was already contained in the Constitution Protection Act prior to the Amending Act of 20 December 2006. A novelty in the
impugned version of the provision is that account contents may also be collected in
order to obtain information on activities within the meaning of § 3.1 no. 1 of the North
Rhine-Westphalia Constitution Protection Act, namely activities which in general
terms are targeted against the free democratic fundamental order, the continued existence or the security of the Federation or of a Land. According to the reasoning of the
Act, this is to make it possible to uncover the channels by means of which domestic
terrorist networks, so-called “home-grown networks”, are financed (see Landtag document 14/2211, p. 19).
16
4. Equally, only the complainants re 1 complain about the unconstitutionality of § 13
of the North Rhine-Westphalia Constitution Protection Act. This provision empowers
the constitution protection authority to process its information in joint files with other
security authorities. The provision refers to other federal or Land law in respect of the
17
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