consideration to practicability which cannot justify the violation of Article 19.4 of
the Basic Law, and which constitutes a violation of the right to informational selfdetermination.
It is the complainants’ position that § 9.6 of the G 10 Act is unconstitutional as it precludes the recourse to a court in cases involving measures of strategic surveillance.
The legal protection provided by Article 19.4 of the Basic Law cannot be restricted by
a law. Nor does this article contain any "immanente Schranken" [inherent limitations
through other rights and constitutional principles protected by the Basic Law] which
would have the same effect. Furthermore, the regulation violates Article 2.1 in conjunction with Article 1.1 of the Basic Law as it violates the principle of proportionality.
No legitimate objective can be discerned which can justify such a restriction.
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3. The complainants bringing the third constitutional complaint (1 BvR 2437/95),
(3a) and (3b) respectively, challenge that § 3.1(1) and § 3.1 sent. 2 nos. 2-6 and
§§ 3.2-3 8 of the G 10 Act violate Article 10, Article 2.1 in conjunction with Article 1.1,
Article 5.1(2), Article 19.4, Article 20.2 and Article 73 nos. 1 and 10 of the Basic Law.
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The first of the two complainants bringing the third constitutional complaint (3a) publishes the daily newspaper "die tageszeitung." This legal entity claims that it maintains
correspondents' posts in many countries and co-operates with free-lance authors and
other publishers all over the world. Its reporting focuses, inter alia, on the subjects of
corruption, international terrorism, international trade in drugs and arms, money laundering, organised crime, intelligence service activities, plutonium smuggling and the
transfer of money from the First to the Third World.
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The second of the two complainants bringing the third constitutional complaint (3b)
is a journalist who lives in Germany and Italy and has a permanent residence in each
of the countries. He claims that he researches and publishes, inter alia, in the areas of
international terrorism, international trade in drugs and arms, money laundering, organised crime and intelligence service activities. He has many contacts at home and
abroad to persons who form part of the circles which could be considered subjects of
monitoring measures.
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As participants in international telecommunications traffic, both complainants argue
that they are directly affected by the challenged regulations. In this context, the first
complainant (3a) claims that it exchanges with the second complainant (3b) and with
other German and foreign correspondents the results of research and insight that
may contain search concepts and combinations of search concepts that result in
monitoring by the Federal Intelligence Service. The second complainant (3b) alleges
that he conducts research mainly from Italy and predominantly works for German
publishing houses and newspaper publishers. As both complainants are not informed
of specific acts of implementation of the regulation, i.e. of orders for monitoring and of
the interception and recording of telecommunications traffic, they have to challenge
the legal regulation directly and generally.
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20/77