Beatrix von Storch, March 21, 2024, Internet Censorship

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/160, pp. 20448-20449. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The DDG [Digital-Dienste-Gestez] implements the EU’s Digital Services Act: EU-wide internet censorship. The Ampel has decided that for this censorship the Federal Network Agency is responsible and coordinates it. No joke: The officials, who hitherto have regulated the transmission and competition in the gas and electricity network, are also responsible for on-line censorship, 

            Tabea Rössner (Greens): A lie! Impudent! 

instead of, for example, the Federal Justice Ministry. 

At the top stands Klaus Müller, former Green minister from Schleswig-Holstein, exactly so as his Green chief, Robert Habeck. Green clique! Yet before the law is at all in effect, Herr Müller openly threatened in January 2024 – cite: 

“When I catch anyone the second or third time…then I need to say with all distinctness: The Digital Services Act then has very sharp teeth.” 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): That’s right!

The threat is not a fabrication. Herr Müller or the coordinating office at the Federal Network Agency can impose penalty payments against on-line platforms which do not sufficiently censure. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): Are you nervous on that account?

Six percent of the worldwide daily revenue, millions of U.S. dollars in penalties – without being imposed by a court. Ergo: The platforms will censor, and the Green coordinating office will therein no doubt give rise to what is to be censured. 

             Tabea Rössner (Greens): Such idiocy I’ve never heard!

For a brutal deletion practice by the platforms suffices this danger of penalties in the millions. 

Yet the coordinating office may do much more than what a judiciary or police in a state of law may do: Conduct investigations, gather evidence, hear witnesses, examine witnesses, inspect places of business without a court order, seize property up to three days without court authorization. And for support, the coordinating office is allowed to name civil law organizations for so-called trustworthy whistle-blowers [Hinweisgebern] whose indications of censorship [Zensurhinweise] are to be preferably implemented. We all know who that is. Stasi Kahane for laughing no longer sleeps. This army of leftist on-line denouncers shall cull and report disliked opinions, and the data of people of wrong opinion will then be passed on to the BKA [Federal Criminal Office]. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): So that you cannot thereby spread all your hatred!

This law paves the way to a digital police state. 

            Detlef Müller (SPD-Chemnitz): No smaller does it get now!

For that, the Ampel now massively arms the BKA. Money is there, but not for the fight against organized criminality, clans or terrorism, but so as to persecute expressions of opinion on the internet. The number of officials in the reporting office shall be increased more than ten times from today’s 39 to 430. And the BKA states on page 64 of the proposal, Herr colleague Mordhorst, 

            Maximilian Mordhorst (FDP): Preamble, Frau von Storch! That is not the text                        of the law! 

that the test cases [Prüffälle] will increase by more than a hundred times, from 6,000 to around 720,000. The overwhelming majority of test cases will affect blameless citizens who have been denounced by the left-green on-line Stasi. 

Who on Facebook insults Habeck’s heat pump is – Schwupp – a test case for the BKA. Hundreds of BKA officials need to occupy themselves with that. 

You use this proposal from Brussels for your ideological fight against all and anyone who is not left. The more its backing in the population dwindles, the more the Ampel employs surveillance, intimidation and repression – see the Democracy Promotion Act. 

            Renate Künst (Greens): You need to pay attention that the features do not slip!

This state has lost every measure, writes the NZZ [Neue Zürcher Zeitung]. With this coordinating  office, it creates a Green species of directed censor officials; and proudly writes, they are completely independent. That means, they are without any democratic control. This censorship monster belongs in no democracy. On that account, all democrats will today reject this attack on our free democratic basic order. 

Many thanks. 

            Irene Mihalic (Greens): What do you want then?

 

[trans: tem]

 

Bernhard Zimniok, February 7, 2024, Digital Services Act

European Parliament, Straßburg, P9 CRE PROV (2024) 02-07(3-183-0000). 

Herr President. 

During Corona we clearly saw how divergent opinions were defamed by the mainstream as hate and incitement and were rigorously censored in the social media. That these opinions then later proved in large part to be correct – one need only think of the ostensible protection of the vaccination or the ostensible utility of masks – clearly shows that for the state it is only about the prerogative of interpretation [Deutungshoheit], about being able to justify the inhuman Covid preventive measures. 

The lesson should be to strengthen freedom of opinion, to prevent censorship and to oppose state fake news campaigns. Yet the present situation in Germany now indicates exactly the other direction. The anti-democratic strivings of the government are even intensified: Government demonstrations against the opposition on the basis of a fake news campaign stimulated by the government – as there is only in totalitarian systems. 

This is supported by the government broadcasters ARD and ZDF which at these demonstrations more than 100 times interviewed ostensibly random demonstration participants who then were revealed as representatives of the governing parties. These anti-democratic proceedings once again prove how important social media is at the present time, where citizens can independently inform themselves. And precisely on that account, the Commission opposes freedom of opinion on the platforms by means of the Digital Services Act. The Digital Services Act therefore ought to be just so comprehensively abolished as the public broadcasting in Germany. 

 

[trans: tem]

Tobias Peterka, December 15, 2023, EU Digital Services Act

AfD Kompakt, December 15, 2023. 

The AfD delegation in the German Bundestag is worried about the attempt of the EU Commission to still further restrict freedom of opinion and information in the social networks. Each citizen has the right to freely express and spread his opinion and, unhindered, to inform himself from generally accessible sources. This right is also part of the EU basic rights charter. The EU Commission’s attempt to intimidate the managers of the platform “X” (formerly Twitter) by means of unsubstantiated assertions and threats does not breathe of the free and constitutional spirit of this lofty obligation. The Commission therein aims to move the platform, in anticipated obedience [vorauseilendem Gehorsam], to the deletion of user contributions which fall under the freedom of opinion. The EU “Digital Services Act” unfortunately makes possible such interventions in the freedom of opinion protected by the basic rights. Who restricts the freedom of opinion and information nevertheless endangers the foundation of democracy. 

We demand of the Federal government to comprehensively commit itself at the European level to the abolition of the EU “Digital Services Act”. 

 

[trans: tem]

Barbara Lenk, July 6, 2023, Artificial Intelligence

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/115, p. 14257. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Valued colleagues. 

We today discuss a motion of the Linke delegation for the debate on the EU legislation for generative artificial intelligence. As usual, the Linke’s petitioners hunt after the phantom of an alleged discrimination by means of algorithms. As usual, they see the cure for saving the situation in an unbounded regulation of AI which is adapted to nip in the bud every creative impulse in regards start-ups as well as small and Mittlestand businesses. Their motion is thereby not approvable; since it prevents a future-oriented alignment of Germany’s policy with the goal of a digital sovereignty. 

As examples of generative AI, you name ChatGPT, Dall-E and Midjourney. These generators for pictures and text of U.S. American businesses determine the perception of larger AI models for the end user. 

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, we should not forget: There are also generative AI made in Germany; for instance, the open source software Stable Diffusion or the chatbot Luminous of Aleph Alpha. 

The demands in the motion put forward by the Linke delegation hide the danger of throttling the creative dynamic of the German AI landscape in research and business. It is senseless to categorize generative AI per se as high-risk and thereby force it under the yoke of examinations and obligations. An AI is a neutral tool. Its potential for use or harm evolves as a result of the intentions of its users. A drone-borne camera can, for example, take spectacular photos of climbers on a cliff. Yet such a camera can also pursue a citizen in a city and brand his behavior as “socially undesirable”. 

In brief: The motion put forward by the Linke delegation we can only reject. The actual risk which threatens Germany in the matter of AI is the growing economic divide between Germany and the U.S.A. or China. So that the digital divide does not deepen into an AI canyon, Germany needs to finally invest in AI suitable data centers. This should also be intelligible to the Herr Federal Finance Minister! The door of digital sovereignty in regards AI is still open. The Linke’s motion however leads into an impassable labyrinth without return. This way we do not follow. 

Many thanks for the attention. Shortly before the close, I wish all colleagues a nice time off. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

Marcus Buchheit, July 11, 2023, European Semiconductor Industry

AfD Kompakt, July 11, 2023. 

So that the European Chips Law does not become the next flop of megalomaniac EU policy, the EU should respect the subsidiarity principle and leave industrial policy in the hands of the national states. Semiconductor manufacturing is a key industry. Yet the promotion of same is empirically far better boosted by the member states than in an EU competence. EU projects are often announced with great tam-tam so to be subsequently buried the more secretively, silently and gently. The EU member states can do industrial policy better, more successfully and more profitably. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Christian Wirth, June 22, 2023, Domestic Terrorism and Surveillance

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/112, pp. 13757-13758. 

Frau President. Valued colleagues. 

Herr Grötsch, I really almost thought I would be obliged to thank you as you had begun to say what is important: All here in house are against any kind of terrorism. I owed it to you. Unfortunately, you again disappoint in this narrative: Most of the danger proceeds from the right. 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Yet that is no narrative! 

            Uli Grötsch (SPD): It is proved! For years!

I want to tell you one example. In the year 2022, in the area of phenomena of “right extremism, right terrorism” – in any case, too much – 19 proceedings were initiated by the Federal Prosecutor General, in the area of phenomena of “left extremism, left terrorism” one proceeding, and in the area of phenomena of “Islamic-motivated extremism/terrorism” all of 236 proceedings. 

Matthias W. Birkwald (Linke): It does not depend on proceedings! It depends on verdicts!

This standard picture, “most of the danger proceeds from the right” – you thereby certainly do not mean terrorism – is a narrative the propagation of which has two reasons. 

One thing is quite clear; that, with these billions against the right, NGOs shall be fed which have, for example, been paid for having meanwhile flown in 52,000 for the 250 Afghanistan local auxiliaries as reported by you. 

For another, Herr Haldenwang yesterday has confirmed, as he stated on public television: The Constitution Defense is not alone responsible for reducing the AfD’s polling numbers. That is a quite clear sign that not just in this legislative period under you, in the SPD’s Interior Ministry, but already in the CDU’s Interior Ministry, an order has been given to the Constitution Defense, to clear away a politically disagreeable opponent – and nothing else other. Yet this will have its consequences. 

            Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): Ever the same story!

We have already spoken of diverse cases. In the case of Castrop-Rauxel, Syrians seeking protection have attempted to carry out an attack with Rizin. According to careful estimates, some 30,000 to 40,000 dead and injured were to be tallied. We already previously had such a case with a Syrian in Nordrhein-Westfalen. Those are real dangers, which gives one to think, if one does think, how many victims of Islamism there have been in Europe in the last years. Those are the dangers with which we need to deal. 

These dangers unfortunately are often imported. We have for 2022 registered 530 persons posing a danger in the area of phenomena of “religious ideology”, and an additional 503 as so-called relevant persons. 317 of those posing a danger remain in Germany, and 448 of the relevant persons. 132 of those posing a danger do not possess German citizenship. It needs be said: They still do not possess it. Of the relevant persons, 171 are foreign citizens. Almost half of those 132 posing a danger in the area of phenomena of “religious ideology” with a foreign citizenship are Syrians; 62, so as to say exactly. Deported in the first three quarters of 2022 were 17 persons from the Islamic spectrum of whom five were those posing a danger. Merely five of 132 of those posing a danger were deported. This cannot continue. 

We have just peeked at the situation. I will not now return to the mass attacks in the swimming pools. Yet we see it in Nordrhein-Westfalen, in Castrop-Rauxel, Essen, Cologne: What is happening there? Turks, Lebanese and Syrians give themselves over to a war, a gang war, a clan war, on German streets. With up to 500 participants. These Syrians have well integrated themselves. They learn from the Lebanese that here one can carry out his power politics on German streets. 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Auweia!

Law we give them in the area “Precaution, security custody, preventive detention”. 

A quite important theme which should concern us all is of course the online search and sources of telecommunications surveillance. Actually, the Ampel coalition had announced to quickly deal with these themes, just as the Greens and the FDP had asserted in the last legislative period that, following the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court, they had found the stone of the wise. This is indeed not so. 

            Vice-president Yvonne Magwas: Please come to a conclusion.

The new speed limit in Germany is indeed to be measured by the freight bicycle, with one forward movement and four backwards. Here we need to quite quickly act. We owe it to the victims, the potential victims and certainly to the victims of child abuse. 

            Vice-president Yvonne Magwas: Last sentence Herr Dr. Wirth, please. 

Many thanks.

  

[trans: tem]

           

 

 

 

Tobias Peterka, April 21, 2023, Data Mining

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/98, pp. 11855-11856.

Frau President. Right honorable colleagues.

Data are the essential currency of the digital age. This platitude is meanwhile – we have heard it – even overtaken by the Linke. In regards today’s data track which oneself each time again lays down and by means of which one is coordinated with others, the term “resource” instead of “currency” is actually more correct and therefrom also derives this term of data mining.

Is this discipline now a curse or a blessing, good for the individual or only for the powerful, for  the economy or for the state, for the well founded or only for the dull witted? Generally, it is scarcely to be thus answered. And thus also data mining in a medical connection is first dealt with predominantly in the named comprehensive report. Certainly it applies to emphasizing the enormous potential uses and for that reason the theme is initially very well suited for an exemplary assay.

Legally, we are not in completely unknown territory. Informational self-determination, creators’ rights, performance protective rights or rights of ownership, also in businesses, ultimately have bundled data as raw material for a theme. Therein also can now already be set out without problem an additional level of rights. Here in the future needs to be more precisely defined how dependence of this raw material on the further processing level is to be legally defined. Unusual in any case is the circumstance of non-consumption. Once used primary data certainly does not vanish just because secondary data is derived from it.

I want to again make clear both endpoints of the fundamentally scarcely comprehensible evaluation chain. Initially there is a concrete information, on occasion in direct reference to an individual, or traceable, and quite at the end there is a recommended action or acknowledgment on the basis of an inquiry from a many times processed global data product. In between, any refining stage is imaginable, the designation “data mining” itself thus actually still much too  briefly grasped.  

For long is neglected that private businesses here tend to completely hurry away from state actors, at least when over-bearing autocrats in the health area repeatedly present a special case. As with every technological upheaval, both failures of over-regulation on one side and wild growth on the other are in any case to be avoided. When however I look at the Corona policy of first the Merkel government and now that of the Ampel, this bad tutelage, the future in regards health data becomes for me one of angst and alarm; that, I need really say.

At least the avoidance of personal back reference [Rückbezug] is, yes, hopefully self-evident. Transparency and anonymity are also important, although only relevant rather early in the refining process. The avoidance of monopolization also becomes important at every level. For that, actually drawing up a public law body would at least be presentable, as long as this itself then did not again act as a bottleneck. Derived data products in the health area however then need, again please, to be accessible to private law ownership.

Data mining needs to be retrospectively, objectively subject to scrutiny, quite precisely. An ideological forward control, as you so gladly always do it, is on the contrary to be strictly rejected. Statistical data can indeed be based on incomplete realities. Data sets are nonetheless never therein guilty, rather the respective realities.   

Finish-refined data sets [Fertigraffinierte Datensätze] are thereby in regards to a more precise consideration a purely ethical, absolutely sterile product which would also open up enormous opportunities beyond political trench warfare. Whether you acknowledge that and really want it, I however do not believe.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Barbara Lenk, January 27, 2023, Digital Identity

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/83, pp. 9934-9935.

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Valued colleagues.

The Union demands in the motion put forward that secure digital identities be introduced in Germany as soon as possible, a proposal which indeed over ten years ago was started, yet was only half-heartedly implemented. Already in November 2010 was the personal certificate [Personalausweis] with its online function introduced in Germany. Yet this form of a digital identity was scarcely used in this country, with at one time just 10 percent. The reasons are at hand: Noteworthy applications are lacking. The online function is plainly and simply scarcely recognized by the people. It is thus no wonder that trust is lacking. And who is responsible for this digital obstruction? That delegation which today demands the introduction of secure digital identities in Germany.

            Stefan Müller (CDU/CSU): Did you actually copy the speech of the Ampel?

Yet the Ampel’s sad digital policy can also be criticized. That unfortunately is still bitterly necessary.

I come now to your motion. Your motion’s first demand is practically hollow. By the end of the first quarter of 2023, you demand a strategy for digital identities. As if we still hadn’t enough strategies!

            Markus Reichel (CDU/CSU): We don’t!

There are already national strategies for artificial intelligence, for data, for Open Source, ja, for digital in general. Valued ladies and gentlemen, we have no conception problem, but an implementation problem.

            Markus Reichel (CDU/CSU): We also have a conception problem!

To here write an additional strategy paper would be the same as a digital insolvency delay.

The people in Germany self-evidently expect a secure solution for their digital identities. That refers not only to the claim to digital services but also to purchase and financial transactions on the net. Valued colleagues, that is an urgent theme. That is indicated by the frantically growing number of internet frauds based on misuse of available identities.

Valued colleagues of the Union, your motion rightly criticizes that the Ampel for long has not realized the so-called Smart eID and only holds out a prospect of rapid realization, without saying where actually is the catch. In the presented form, your delegation’s motion is scarcely capable of consent. Some aspects are not addressed in your motion. For one, the question of a possibly obligatory use of a digital identity is not presented. For another, the question of an analog fallback option is lacking. Further, there follows no theme development of the technical possibilities in foreign states of selecting without contact the personal certificate over the eID function. For this problematic, the AfD delegation first needs to put a minor inquiry.

Valued ladies and gentlemen, a goal of a secure digital identity is, for example, to spare the citizens from dealing with officials, or simplifying everyday living. We should however not lose sight of the risks of an all-around surveillance.

Valued colleagues of the Union delegation, we invite you in the future to bring in parliamentary initiatives for digital policy themes in common with us as opposition in the German Bundestag.

            Josef Oster (CDU/CSU): Oje!

            Markus Reichel (CDU/CSU): Nay. That, I believe, will not happen!

That might promise more prospect of success – for goodness sake.

I am grateful.

 

[trans: tem]