Today it became public, that the newly elected grand coalition, consisting of christian democrats and social democrats, intends to increase the salary of parliamentarians from currently 8252€ to 9082€ (before taxes). They argue, that this was planned since 1995 were a law was passed that intended to match a politicians wage with that of other […]
Obama then and now – change we can believe in
Today, US president Obama will declare that nothing is wrong with the total surveillance system that has grown like a tumor in the once freedom and privacy loving grove of democracy the founding fathers envisioned. The surveillance system has indeed grown and a militaristic logic now is dominant within the US discourse on terror prevention […]
Why it is not „just“ metadata
As you might know, the beloved EU data retention directive requires Internet-Service-Provider to save communication metadata. In Germany, the product of this directive is called „Vorratsdatenspeicherung“. Surveillance-enthusiasts argue, that metadata does not violate any privacy rights because it does not save the content of communication and is therefore harmless. Metadata means that for meta-information of each […]
Connecting the dots, January
The Guardian writes, that the NSA is supposedly spying on members of the US congress. This is rather odd because they repeatedly denied (even in front of the very congress), to spy on US citizens. The only viable conclusion therefore is, that the NSA does not perceive the US congress as citizens, ergo validating the […]