The complainants claim that the challenged regulations violate Article 10, Article
5.1(2), Article 2.1 in conjunction with Article 1.1, Article 19.4 and Article 20.2 of the
Basic Law. Moreover, the complainants argue, the Act violates the regulation of legislative powers established in the Basic Law, because with this law, the Federal parliament is able to regulate domestic police tasks even though it has no legislative authority to do so. A result of comprehensive telecommunications monitoring conducted
without an existing suspicion of illegal activity is that effective journalistic research in
the specific areas is no longer possible, to the extent that it must be carried out by
means of telecommunications traffic across the German borders. It is the concern of
the complainants that journalistic projects, which in their preliminary or preparatory
stages are the subject of discussions via telecommunications facilities, cannot take
place without the Federal Intelligence Service knowing about them, as such longdistance communications will contain the search concepts and search concept combinations and thus trigger monitoring. Another result of the monitoring, the complainants assert, will be that informants will refuse to supply information by telephone
and will no longer make appointments by telephone or fax. Research that concerns
the activities of the Federal Intelligence Service or of other secret services is, for instance, doomed to failure from the outset as the Federal Intelligence Service can anticipate and prepare for such investigations with the assistance of the monitoring allowed by the challenged regulations.
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The complainants assert that the revision of Article 3 of the G 10 Act also breaks
with the long-standing principles in cases involving encroachments upon telecommunications privacy. In the future, people for whom there is absolutely no reason to suspect criminal activity may be affected by the system of electronic telecommunications
monitoring. Even if the obtained data is not transferred to prosecuting agencies, the
Federal Intelligence Service may, pursuant to § 3.3(2) of the G 10 Act in conjunction
with § 12 of the Federal Intelligence Service Act, transfer personal data to the head of
the Federal Chancellery and the Federal ministers in the framework of their competencies. The subject of telecommunications monitoring, on the other hand, has no
right to be informed if the Federal Intelligence Service or the receiving agency have
destroyed the data within three months after it was obtained.
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The complainants assume that only the Federal Intelligence Service is able to develop the adequate search concepts and combinations of search concepts. Thus, the
Federal Intelligence Service possesses a de facto power of definition that is not really
effectively controlled by the G 10 Commission. According to the complainants, the
new legal regulations also preclude an autonomous control by the Federal Data Protection Commissioner. The Federal Data Protection Commissioner cannot become
active on his or her own initiative but only on behalf of the G 10 Commission and may
only inform this Commission (§ 3.9 of the G 10 Act).
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The complainants argue that the expansion of authority to monitor telecommunications out of concern for the threat of terrorism, of the proliferation of weapons of war,
drug trade and money laundering also cannot be subsumed under the concept "to
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