German leader doubts hijack law
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Germany's president says a new law allowing for hijacked airliners to be shot down may violate the constitution.
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An increasing reliance on private security firms in foreign conflicts, with no international oversight to ensure they follow the law, is a worrying trend, Germany's top spy said on Thursday.
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When it comes to who can and who can't be a hacker, the German government appears to want its cake and eat it, too.
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A German-language mouthpiece for al  Qaeda has re-emerged on the Internet, vowing to defy the  authorities despite this month&#39;s arrest of suspects linked to  it in Austria and Canada.
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The European Commission said Monday that it has threatened the German government with legal action unless it scraps a new law that protects Deutsche Telekom AG from competition in the broadband Internet access market.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has   sought to bolster ties with the United States since she took   office, rebuked Washington on Saturday for sanctioning secret   CIA prisons used to interrogate terror suspects.
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German authorities called on Friday for increased vigilance against possible terror attacks and said the kind of threat detected before the September 11, 2001 suicide hijackings in the United States had resurfaced.
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A German judge is to rule whether two men suspected of planning an al-Qaeda suicide attack can be held.
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Germany is reeling after an alleged al-Qaeda-style bomb attempt on home soil, says the BBC's Tristana Moore.
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German authorities concede only luck prevented terrorists from blowing up two trains last month &#151; an admission that has set off a push for stronger security measures, including more video cameras, a new anti-terrorism database and even armed marshals.
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A German proposal to deploy "trojan horse" software to secretly monitor potential terror suspects' hard drives sparks fierce debate over whether the measures violate civil liberties.
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STRASBOURG, France  - European Union lawmakers clashed on Wednesday over whether they had enough evidence to accuse their governments of colluding with the CIA on alleged secret flights of terrorism suspects in the bloc.
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Germany, fearful of being the next major target for Islamic terrorists, is edging away from its deep aversion to intrusive and harsh enforcement tactics.
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"For me, it is a unique case in federal German legal history for a minister to say, 'this verdict doesn't interest me, I will violate it,'"  Germany's defense minister said he might order the shooting down of hijacked airlines to avert a Sept. 11-style attack, drawing widespread criticism Monday after the country's highest court threw out a law permitting such action.In a weekend magazine interview, Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung argued that, despite the ruling, shooting down a plane would be possible 'in cases of common danger or danger to free and democratic basic order.''If there are no other means, I would give the order to shoot down (a plane) in order to protect our citizens,' he said. Read more
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A German law currently in draft form would make hacking illegal, even if no data was stolen. It would also ban the creation or use of hacker tools -- a prospect that worries "white hat" security experts.
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(InfoWorld) - When it comes to who can and who can't be a hacker, the German government appears to want its cake and eat it, too. AfterÂ passing antihacking legislationÂ earlier this year to crack down on the sharp rise in computer attacks in the public and private sectors, the government is now floating a plan to develop and smuggle its own spyware on to the hard drives of suspected terrorists through e-mail messages. German Interior Minister Wolfgang SchÃ¤uble has been feverishly seeking support for a new security law that would allow federal authorities to investigate suspects' Internet use and stored data without their knowledge, ever since the country's Federal Court of JusticeÂ halted their cybersnooping activitiesÂ in February. The judges argued that the hacking of computers by the police is not permitted under Germany's strict phone-tapping laws and that legislation would be needed to enable covert surveillance. SchÃ¤uble's efforts to introduce a security law with wider police surveillance powers have, however, led to a heated debate that nearly exploded late last week when a copy of the proposed security law was leaked to the German media. The measure would allow authorities to install Trojans carrying remote forensic software on suspects' hard drives. While SchÃ¤uble has said that government cyberspying would only be conducted in a handful of exceptional cases and only on those suspected of planning terrorist attacks, critics say he may have overstepped his bounds. Max Stadler, a security expert with the German Free Democratic Party, warned in a ZDF television interview last week that the Interior Ministry's spyware plan would weaken the trust of German citizens in government. He referred to the government Trojan as "an invasion into the private sphere." Magnus Kalkuhl, a virus specialist at the German office of Russian security software vendor Kaspersky Lab, said the plan "would undermine the very purpose of security software, which is to plug -- not make -- security holes." The idea of allowing officials in one specific country to snoop also disturbs Kalkuhl. "What's going to prevent police in Germany from breaking into computers in Italy?" he asked. And even if the government approves the use of spyware, Wolfgang Wieland, a member of the Green Party, told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper last week that he questions the success of a measure that assumes suspects know little about computers and won't detect and remove Trojans and other spyware. It's naive to believe that terrorists, who live in a world of conspiracy, would trip over something as obvious as e-mail from an unfamiliar source, he said. In defense of the plan, SchÃ¤uble said in an interview with Deutschlandradio last week that police need to keep pace with terrorists and criminals, who shouldn't be allowed to use cyberspace as a protected area. The plan, he said, isn't to control everyone's computer but rather only those machines used by suspected criminals and terrorists and only for a limited period of time. JÃ¶rg Ziercke, president of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), said in an interview with the German magazine Stern that the planned remote forensic software can't be used broadly because it must be tailored to run on each targeted computer. "We're talking about 10 such measures a year," he said. The German government has released no technical details of how the sypware will operate. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry declined to comment, citing security regulations. The use of spyware by crime fighters isn't new. For instance, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation uses a tool, called CIPAV (computer and Internet Protocol address verifier), which can record IP addresses and send this data back to government computers. Nor is Germany the only European country debating spyware legislation. Neighboring Switzerland and Austria are reportedly considering laws that will give police greater powers to monitor computers online. Neither of the countries has released any information on their spyware plans. No firm date is set when German parliamentarians are expected to vote on the proposed security law. But with Islamic radicals targeting German troops and others working in Afghanistan in recent weeks, SchÃ¤uble has spoken of a heightened threat level that makes the spyware issue of increasing urgency. Â
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(InfoWorld) - For months, German Interior Minister Wolfgang SchÃ¤uble has been lobbying intensively forÂ tough security measures to fight terrorismÂ and cybercrime. Now he's putting his words into action. Law enforcement officials in Germany and Austria are now among the first to have electronic access to each other's fingerprint databases, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior said Monday. Since 2006, the two countries have shared their DNA databases as one of several measures agreed by some European Union nations under the Treaty of PrÃ¼m in 2005. The treaty, which has meanwhile been signed by several E.U. member states, gives police and other security agencies in different countries unprecedentedÂ access to a range of individuals' personal data. During its E.U. presidency, Germany is trying to muster enough support to turn the Treaty of PrÃ¼m into E.U. law. Support for tough security measures has grown in Germany and other E.U. member states that worry about their national security being increasingly threatened by international terrorism, organized crime and, increasingly, cybercrime. Recently, the Baltic nation ofÂ Estonia suffered several weeks of DDOSÂ (distributed denial-of-service) attacks against government and private-sector Web sites. That DDOS attack sent a warning signal to governments across Europe. On Monday at an IT security conference hosted by the German Interior Ministry, SchÃ¤uble referred to information technology and communications infrastructures as "the nerve strands of society" and called on everyone -- governments, businesses and consumers -- to give IT security a top priority. Protecting critical infrastructure, including communication and energy grids, from cyberattacks is a key area of focus during the two-day conference. SchÃ¤uble is also determined to give the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) greater power to monitor terrorists and criminals online by allowing the agency to peek inside their computers. In an interview with the Berliner Zeitung published on Saturday, the minister said he aims to complete draft legislation over the next few weeks to allow the BKA to hack into the PCs of suspected criminals. This year Germany's High Court handed down a landmark decisionÂ banning police from installing spywareÂ on computers of suspected criminals without their knowledge. The High Court in Karlsruhe argued that searching computers is similar to searching homes, a practice in Germany that requires police to follow certain procedures, such as obtaining a search warrant and informing suspected offenders of a search. The judges also argued that hacking computers by the police is not permitted under Germany's strict phone-tapping laws and that legislation would be needed to enable covert surveillance. In the interview, SchÃ¤uble said he would amend Germany's constitutional law to allow online surveillance if the country's leading courts required such an amendment. In February, Germany passed a law allowing security officials to create the largest and most comprehensive pool of personal data ever amassed in the country. The databases of nearly 40 different agencies, including BKA and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), are now linked to allow authorities to run searches on suspected individuals and retrieve information within minutes. Â