a newspaper publisher. Pursuant to Article 19.3 of the Basic Law, the complainant,
as a legal person, is also entitled to the protection of Article 10 of the Basic Law. According to the complainant's statement, reports on the subjects of corruption, international terrorism, international trade in drugs and arms, money laundering, organised
crime, intelligence service activities, and plutonium smuggling are among the editorial focuses of its newspaper. The complainant maintains correspondents' posts in
other countries and co-operates, inter alia, with the second complainant (3b) and other German and foreign correspondents, journalists and publishers outside Germany.
The mentioned topics are subjects of the Federal Intelligence Service's telecommunications monitoring. Complainant (3a), to this extent, is similarly situated along with
the complainant bringing the first constitutional complaint. The statement made by
complainant (3a) also shows that it is not a remote assumption that the Federal Intelligence Service may take note of the complainant’s editorial projects, a likelihood that
impairs the complainant's procurement of information.
d) The second of the two complainants bringing the third constitutional complaint
(3b) is a journalist with permanent residences in Germany and Italy. In his statement,
he argues 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, and that he, in this context, maintains many contacts at home and abroad. As in the case of the first complainant bringing the third
constitutional complaint, this is sufficient to justify a possible impact on his fundamental rights.
155
3. Contrary to the circumstances of the other complainants, the second of the two
complainants bringing the second constitutional complaint has not sufficiently established that he is personally and directly affected by the legal regulations that he challenges. He is an Uruguayan citizen with his permanent residence in Uruguay. In his
statement, he claims that that he takes care of the telecommunications traffic of the
first of the two complainants bringing the second constitutional complaint when she is
absent. As he does not provide any further details, his statement does not show, to
the required degree of probability, that his fundamental rights are affected by measures taken pursuant to the challenged regulations.
156
C.
The challenged regulations are not fully consistent with the Basic Law.
157
I.
The standard applied to the review of the constitutionality of the challenged legislation is, above all, Article 10 of the Basic Law. Article 10 of the Basic Law protects interests that are distinct from the right to informational self-determination that follows
from Article 2.1 in conjunction with Article 1.1 of the Basic Law. As concerns telecommunications traffic, Article 10 of the Basic Law contains a special guarantee which supersedes the general protections of Article 2.1 (cf. BVerfGE 67, p. 157 [at p. 171]). To
40/77
158