Germany’s constitutional court shows the way on foreign spying and human rights

This analysis by Russell A. Miller of the Bundesverfassungsgericht’s recent judgment on the Federal Intelligence Service’s large-scale foreign surveillance activities has really made my week 🙂

The judgment demonstrates what the rule of law FULLY means  when it states: “All decisions of the state are covered by the Basic Law’s comprehensive commitment to basic rights” — including foreign spying. I hear English intelligence lawyers grinding their teeth 😉

? “The court found that by giving extraterritorial force to Germany’s basic rights, domestic constitutional rights can contribute to the advancement of a cosmopolitan agenda, especially the protection and respect owed to human dignity.”

This is like #SchremsII on steroids! “for transfers of information to foreign intelligence services, the law must set strict standards to ensure that the subsequent use of the information respects the rule of law. This means that the intelligence-collecting law must require a case-by-caseanalysis of the foreign system’s protection of information privacy.” This is like a giant ? lobbed at Five Eyes-style free flow of surveillance data, so far as Germany can affect that… (Certainly relevant to UK #adequacyLOL determination too.).

The BVfG has in its BND judgment “demanded that the state’s life in the shadows be brought into the light of the law.” Swoon! 😉