Joana Cotar, December 18, 2019, IT Security and Citizens’ Rights

Joana Cotar

IT Security and Citizens’ Rights

German Bundestag, December 18, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/136, pp. 16972-16973

[Joana Cotar is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the central German state of Hessen. A communications manager, she is the AfD’s Bundestag spokesman for digital policy. Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) was previously head of the Justice Minstry where Eva Högl is presently state secretary.]

Right honorable Herr President. Worthy colleagues. Dear audience.

Place before yourselves the following scenario: The Chinese government issues a law with which it obliges all internet services to give up on demand the passwords of internet users so that officials can test whether all are conducting themselves in loyal fashion, –

           

            Florian Post (SPD): The keyword is called “court order”!

– all naturally for the good of the country and for the citizens. The wicked can quite quickly be sorted out –

            Florian Post (SPD): Court order!

– and at length the wise are trained that the possible surrender of passwords is for the Chinese the legitimate state of affairs and all is ultimately to the good: an upright and obedient people.

“Typical China” we would say to that, turning away with dismay, shaking a finger at those responsible and demanding, “How could you?”

We can in fact shake a finger, ladies and gentlemen, but not at the Chinese. This insanity is not the plan of the Middle Kingdom. This insanity is the plan of our own Federal government. It is our government which wants to establish a surveillance state here in Germany. It is our government which once again conducts an all-out assault upon the rights of the citizens.

            Eva Högl (SPD): Something completely different: The AfD for citizens’ rights!

It is our government which wants to conclusively bury the free internet and freedom of opinion. In line with the ostensible fight against right-wing extremism and hate crimes, the Federal Justice Ministry wants to oblige social networks to automatically pass on to the Federal Criminal Office subsequently culpable posts including the user’s IP address and port number. The social networks must thus store these for the future, even where the storage of port numbers exceeds the constitutionally questionable data retention. Whether the post is culpable or whether the data of the completely innocent was passed along, that is to be decided later.

Yet even that is not enough for the Ministry. The security officials will also be assigned the right to force internet firms like Google, Twitter, Tinder , Facebook, as well as forums and blogs, to give up the passwords and other highly confidential data of their customers. The circle of authorized departments which can demand passwords is thereby expanded and in no way relates only to the officials combating terrorism, since the surrender of passwords can be ordered not only for criminal acts but even for those deemed to be disorderly. Even a preventative surrender for security purposes shall be possible. Ja, even the campaign against the violations of creators’ rights shall be obliged. Since the law is also directed against hate on the internet, infractions of opinion will also be added. Here, the court order is a pure placebo, since it is the rule that magistrates always consent to such searches.

            Eva Högl (SPD): Yet you have a high regard for magistrates!

Farewell state of law, farewell private sphere, farewell citizens’ rights. “Inconceivable!”, do you say? Yes, but for this government it is only a logical next step in the fight against the free internet.

            Eva Högl (SPD): Madness!

After the NetzDG and upload filters, now thus the surrender of passwords – the obstinate citizens, still entitled to their own opinions, will anyhow be few. Since what, dear viewer, do you believe will happen when you yourself must fear that one of your posts will consequently lead to the police having your password? Do you still write or do you forego that? And it is precisely that which is the actual goal of the government: It shall be left to the citizen that the people are to be further intimidated.

This government does not want a free internet. This government does not want mature and critical citizens.

            Sebastian Steineke (CDU/CSU): You do not understand the penal code.

It is no wonder that the renewed assault upon citizens’ rights, quite in keeping with the tradition of Maas, again comes from the Justice Ministry, lead by the SPD – from this Ministry we meanwhile have become accustomed to constitutional ideas of a dubious nature.

And, naturally, all that is happening is for the good of the citizens. I have already once here said in plenary session: The curtailment of freedoms would always be sold to the citizens engaged in politics as a defense in the face of dangers. It is up to us all that we no longer swallow that, ladies and gentlemen. I find it simply absurd that you harass the citizens of this state with the Data Defense Basic Regulation [DSGVO] while you yourselves at the same time wish to secure a grip on people’s most intimate communications.

Passwords of many on-line services are submitted only in encrypted form – completely in keeping with the DSGVO. Were they forced to come up with passwords in clear text, that would be a danger to IT security for which words can scarcely be found. Yet the Justice Ministry denies this duty. The boilerplate formulations of rotten legalese permits one to surmise that the pressure on the provider will become so great that they themselves will lower the security standards.

We of the AfD reject this total surveillance of the citizens. We stand for a free internet and freedom of opinion in this country. In May of this year, we already brought a motion, “Freedom on the Internet – Strengthen Citizens’ Rights.” All of you here rejected it. And yet, ladies and gentlemen, we will not give up.

            Florian Post (SPD): We neither!

We will continue to fight for freedom, for the right to openly state one’s opinion, without angst or harassment, since we already once had that in Germany, and that we do not want again.  

My appeal to the Federal government and here especially to the Justice Minister: Stop the curtailment of fundamental human rights. Stop the limitation of the rights of freedom. And before all, finally stop with all that as an introduction to servitude [Bedienungsanleitung] is to be read of in the novel “1984”.

Many thanks.

            Ullii Nissen (SPD): How nice that this speech is over!

[Translated by Todd Martin]

           

Georg Pazderski, December 12, 2019, Berlin

Georg Pazderski

Berlin

Berlin Abgeordetenhaus, December 12, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 18/51, pp. 6022-6024

[Georg Pazderski is chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland in Berlin and leader of the AfD delegation in the Berlin legislature, the Abgeordnetenhaus. He is a retired army officer with more than 40 years service in the Bundeswehr.]

I do not know how it is going with you, but for the last 20 minutes I feel as if I were in the People’s Chamber of the DDR –

            Harald Wolf (Linke): You certainly were not there!

– and I am waiting for the Greens and the Linke at some point to introduce a Five Year Plan!

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. Dear citizens.

Berlin finds itself on a high-speed march back into the darkness of socialism. Occupational bans against opposition police officers, political disciplining of critical associations, collapsing streets and bridges, freight motorcycles instead of modern vehicles! Ever more eco-fascist prohibitions which aim to destroy every joy of life and which shall turn the free citizen into an apathetic tool of the state. The goal is the DDR 2.0, financed by the tax money of the hard-working citizens.

Thus, dear colleagues, we consider the state budget. Scarcely one euro in the motion presented by you will be expended for actual, future projects. Counter to your oath, you invest instead in the heedless transition of your eco-socialist ideology. Instead of making Berlin safer with more police and a better endowment for the officials, you purge the members of the opposition from the ranks of the force. You have intimidated the rest of the public servants with the great fascism club for so long that they no longer dare to contradict. You conjure up emergency climate regulations. You prostrate yourselves before the lunacy of a 16 year old Swedish girl and her greedy, backstage managers. You thereby endanger the employment and welfare of the citizen, without protecting even one bit of the environment.

Money will be primarily squandered on senseless projects: Dismantlement of streets instead of improving the mobility of all transportation participants, very expensive E-buses instead of construction of the street and underground rail networks, a fight against the state of law’s check on leftist extremism and advancing Islamization, luxurious housing for refugees instead of cleaning decrepit schools, unconstitutional rent control instead of the new construction of affordable housing.

Instead of an eagle-eyed defense of the rights of the tax payers, the cornucopia will be poured out over the leftist, clientele groups, as we have heard, from the so-called Antifa to the government lapdog, culture creators. You feed the left-wing enemies of the constitution and make them your willing helpers. It is no wonder then that the Berlin Senate – as confirmed by the Infratest Dimap – is the least admired of German state governments.

The homeless of Berlin must sleep in the streets – you put their very lives at risk – because their government refuses to these poor and needy people the use of the un-used migrant housing, built with many millions of tax money. German pensioners seek their food in trash barrels and gather deposit bottles while your gold-coin guests lack for nothing and are even able to send money home.

Yet all this is hardly surprising. Even that the governing Bürgermeister in all earnestness said here in parliament in regards the kamikaze rent control project that it was inadvisable to yield anticipatory obedience – and that, although five opinions warned of the unconstitutionality of the Senate policy. This week’s headline in the BZ is right – I cite with your permission, Herr Preisident:  

            Müller-dämmerung: “Müller cannot fight and cannot lead.”

Berlin’s Bürgermeister shrinks in office since day one.

We all have been able to continually see how you lead around by the nose. A building Senator who builds nothing and wishes to again be in the DDR. A Justice Senator who prefers to concern himself with swine-keeping rather than an escape-proof jail. An Interior Senator who stands in the starting gate and whom you would prefer to succeed today rather than tomorrow while your colleagues in the SPD delegation are in the background, already whetting the knives.

Right honorable Herr Müller, I predict to you: That will be your last double budget, since the so-called rent control is like a Menetekel on the wall. You will thereby drive big-time into the wall – legally, socially, economically, administratively. What that means for the city can already be surmised. Then will the citizens’ frustration turn into the citizens’ rage. For that, you and the Senate are responsible. You yourself declare to want to make Berlin “less attractive.” The city will grow, but not with achievers [Leistungsträger], engineers, skilled workers, craftsmen or futuristic firms. No, you make of Berlin a city of benefits recipients [Leistungsbezieher], before all, of economic migrants, mostly Moslem young men without qualifications or willingness to integrate, who deprive the Berliners of housing and who are allowed to bleed our social system.  

Instead of reacting to the threats to this city with a zero tolerance, drug dealers ensnare you, drug dealers who, under the eyes of the police dis-empowered by the Justice Senator, are allowed to bring their poison to man and woman in the Berlin parks. 191 drug deaths still appear not to be sufficient for you. You tolerate the leftist mob torching a series of disapproved automobiles and then call this pack of criminals “climate activists.” You should be ashamed of yourselves.

You indeed do not grasp that you thus deprive our city of the last straw at which you are clutching. Berlin is the only capital city of Europe which is a financial drain on the country. Normally it is the other way around. The capital leads the country, it is the model and the economic beacon. Not Berlin under the Red- Red- Green. From here flee the last great industrial firms, like Osram or Bosch, from your anti-economic policy.

You even appear to secretly  celebrate that and that suits your communist partners from the four-times renamed SED and the Green eco-communists because they hate the private economy, they hate businessmen and they hate freedom.

            Wolfgang Albers (Linke): Done yet?

…As in the DDR, the next generation stands before nothing, since socialism is not an approach to politics but a crime against humanity, as is poignantly demonstrated by history.

And the ladies and gentlemen of the opposition parties? You are on the sidelines, banished, like puppy dogs by the snake. Instead of putting together with us a new, middle-class [bürgerlich], conservative opposition, you prefer to cuddle with the Senate, especially with the Green total failures.

Wolfgang Albers (Linke): Never once did your delegation work together with them, Herr Pazderski!

How long do you wish to sacrifice your principles on the altar of seeking favor? How long do wish to actually tolerate this nonsense?

            Kurt Wanser (CDU): Stop but for once now!

Obviously, you hope to be able at some point to enter into a government as a junior partner. While that actually changes nothing, you can at least provide posts for a couple of brave, party soldiers. You should be ashamed to thus play with the citizens of this city.

Our standard is simple. It is middle-class, conservative and definitely oriented to the middle of society. We have taken quite a lot of time to illuminate the Senate cornucopia –

            Sebastian Walter (Greens): No one noticed.  

– which the Red-Red-Green want to pour out over their own clientele, to the burden of the tax payer. Over 700 report motions and around 400 alteration motions from the AfD – we thereby demonstrate to the citizens that we take very earnestly our responsibility as the opposition.

            Wolfgang Albers (Linke): Read aloud a couple for once!

We have, with the submitted draft budget, arrived at a savings sum of 1.86 billion euros. For that, I am quite heartily grateful to all the colleagues and co-workers of my delegation.

            Stefanie Remlinger (Green): Where are the alteration motions then? 

            You still have none!

The AfD has many ambitious, mid- and long-term goals. Our vision: Berlin shall, from the poverty capital of Europe, become the capital of prosperity. We therefore wish to decrease the citizens’ tax and duties burden. We want Berlin to stand on its own feet as soon as possible, instead of yet again having to go begging in Hessen, Hamburg, Baden-Wurttemberg and Bavaria. We want a vigorous and effective debt brake. And once all this is attained, then we can be content to change gears.

            Wolfgang Albers (Linke): For once present a couple of motions!    

I am grateful for your attention.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Uwe Schulz, December 20, 2019, 5G Internet Security

Uwe Schulz

5G Internet Security

German Bundestag, December 20, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/138, pp. 17302-17303

[Uwe Schulz is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the central German state of Hessen. He is a businessman.]

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

Already ten months ago, the AfD demanded of the Federal Government finally to concern itself with measures for the security of our communications network. In contrast to most in this house, it was quite clear to us then that there was a need to act in regards 5G security.  

The bill’s author, on one page, must examine and adapt the legal grounds.

Primarily, it must be politically guaranteed that the 5G network be constructed only with trustworthy firms. For the AfD, it is clear: Firms which are substantially under the influence of undemocratic states, and which can be pressed into espionage, are not partners for us.

            Michael Fulda (CDU/CSU): Then what is it with you and Russia and China?

All of you rejected our motion of February 13, and there was not alternative motion, nothing.

            Christoph Bernstiel (CDU/CSU): Since 2018!

Yet you now come with similar demands that give up the ghost. To you, dear colleagues of the FDP and Greens, is Germany’s security obviously only important when it fits your partisan political concept.

            Ursula Groden-Kranich (CDU/CSU): The righteous speak!

            Falko Mohrs (SPD): Already a bit confused.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a tragedy that even though 5G is long since at the starting gate, the government coalition indicates no clear position. In your oh-so-aggressive 2017 5G strategy, there is nothing on the theme of “Internet Equipment Security”, and in regards frequency auctions, for you, the Federal Government, the proceeds are more important than the security aspects.

            Falko Mohrs (SPD): That is still rubbish! The criteria were already announced! 

A bit of acquaintance with the facts helps!

Yet in that regard, even the Federal Government must have understood what it meant: The 5G network in the future will be the central, critical infrastructure for essential social and economic functions. For you, completely responsible officials have written into the risk assessment that the key components of the 5G networks must be subject to control and that dubious network suppliers are to be excluded. Thus far is theory: Since the Chancellor’s arrogance appears again to have won the upper hand. Frau Merkel is quite well aware that the German intelligence service urgently warned of that in referring back to Chinese network supplier Huawei for the German 5G network. While Frau Merkel believes in her own infallibility, the Economics Minister lapses into angst, fearing Chinese sanctions should Huawei not get underway. The Federal Republic of Germany, ladies and gentlemen, allows itself to be extorted by a country to which we yearly pay more than half a billion euros in development assistance.

What do you notice?

Yet you also know – the Federal Government which is not on hand – that China, in strengthening its own economy, is driving an extremely hard bargain: The banning by Chinese officials of foreign computer technology is only one example. Does that look like trust, ladies and gentlemen? Does that look like partnership?  I think not.

It is a question here of whether we as the Federal Republic of Germany will hand over our digital sovereignty to the Chinese Communist Party or whether we want to make a self-determined foreign and economic policy which defends our sovereignty or even restores it. We demand of the Federal Government an end to your embarrassing game of hide-and-seek and finally take a definite position.

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): When will you again be going to Putin?

Yet perhaps, ladies and gentlemen of the government parties, your vision will become somewhat clearer should you finally take leave of your dependence on Huawei as a sponsor of your party day –

            Ursula Groden-Kranich (CDU/CSU): Not us!

– since that is long since overdue.

Many thanks.

[Translated by Todd Martin]