power to transfer data and the power of other agencies to examine, evaluate and
make further use of personal data obtained on account of the Federal Intelligence
Service's power to monitor.
The complainant gives the following reasons for bringing his constitutional complaint. The complainant claims that his fundamental right under Article 10 of the Basic
Law will, in all probability, be affected because, as a participant in international
telecommunications traffic, he will be monitored by the computer search that is conducted pursuant to § 3.1 of the G 10 Act without a concrete suspicion to justify the
monitoring. He is a university lecturer focusing, inter alia, on criminal law in the field of
narcotics. In connection with his work he maintains varied private and official contacts
- also per telephone and per fax - to countries situated east and west of Germany. He
cannot influence the route (line or wireless) which the act of telecommunication takes.
The complainant argues that it must be possible to challenge the regulation itself,
since he as an individual is not subject to monitoring on the basis of suspicion and,
pursuant to the legal regulation, he is not informed of the fact that his telecommunications contacts are being monitored.
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According to the complainant, the challenged Act violates his fundamental rights under Articles 10, 1.1 and 2.1 of the Basic Law.
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The complainant alleges that every time he dials an international telephone number
and the connection is established via satellite or radio, the content of the communication link may be screened for search concepts, pursuant to a secret order establishing
a restriction of his privacy rights, without any actual suspicion that the complainant is
engaged in illegal activity. If search terms are found, the communication may be
recorded. The complainant accepts that the so-called strategic surveillance contributes intelligence details which provide general information on certain threatening
situations. It is the complainant’s position, however, that the decisive aspect concerning the question whether monitoring constitutes an encroachment upon fundamental
rights is that for this objective, many individual acts of communication are monitored.
The complainant argues that this type of computer search is, in reality, carried out not
only without any suspicion of a threat that is related to a specific perpetrator but even
without any suspicion related to a specific criminal offence.
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According to the complainant, the result of this scheme is, as becomes evident
through the powers of transfer under § 3.5 of the G 10 Act, that the Federal Intelligence Service becomes an investigation agency authorised to investigate in anticipation of threats. In the complainant's view, the Federal Intelligence Service has acquired police and procedural powers to encroach upon fundamental rights. The
statement in the official justification of the Act that claims that the competencies of the
Federal Intelligence Service have not been expanded is, therefore, false. The complainant also alleges that it is incorrect to assume that in the course of surveillance, a
distinction can be made between, on the one hand, threatening international situations in general and dangers arising from criminal offences committed by individuals
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