German Krankheit: Germany Censors Geodata - And Shifts Back Into Communist Era Full Gear

German online IT newspage Heise.de reports in its Tuesday edition that the German legislator drafts a law that would forbid the dissemination of precise geodata. Some remark, it is a shift into full gear, back into communist era censorship.

According to the report, the German government has submitted a draft law to the upper chamber of German parliament titled: "Law for the protection against imperilment of the security of Germany by means of distribution of high quality reconnaissance data".

The law puts all earth reconnaissance and geo-data systems operated from Germany or by Germans under the potential threat of prohibition, and leaves large leeway for interpretation to the authorities to define what "high quality" actually is.

All operators of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) would, according to the draft law, need a written permission by the German authorities to distribute data, which would potentially confront the development of satellite based navigation systems and map material with unacceptable bureaucratic hurdles. The now introduced legislation, according to Heise, would also concern terrain elevation data models, as they could be used to operate unmanned aviation vehicles in terrorist contexts. It is interesting to observe that the law draws its constitutional justification from Article 26 of the German Grundgesetz (constitution):

"Article 26 [Ban on preparations for war of aggression]

(1) Acts tending to and undertaken with intent to disturb the peaceful relations between nations, especially to prepare for a war of aggression, shall be unconstitutional. They shall be made a criminal offense.

(2) Weapons designed for warfare may be manufactured, transported, or marketed only with the permission of the Federal Government. Details shall be regulated by a federal law."

[Non authoritative translation FYI, source: http://www.iuscomp.org/gla/statutes/GG.htm#26]

Commentators in the blogosphere argue that services like Google Earth would either be beaurocratized to the degree of standstill by the now introduced legislation, or be put in peril considered the potential risk of law violation, making it easy for GIS-companies to decide in turn to divert investment away from Germany.

The law provides for a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment or fines of up to EUR 500.000, putting the politically undesired distribution of geo data in one league with the sale of deadly weapons to rogue states, to which article 26 of the Grundgesetz did pertain in its original intention. It is noteworthy that the law, very obviously being a mishapped attempt to curb terrorist dangers, puts terrorist act at one level with "wars of aggression", completely blurring the border between individual criminal acts and state-sponsored wars of aggression.

Some members of the blogosphere also observed in comments about the article that the now introduced law marks an important step back towards communist-era handling of geodata, quoting a report from Berliner Zeitung about intentionally distorted maps in communist Eastern Germany before 1990.

[from: http://bloggi.vox.com/library/post/german-krankheit-germany-censors-geodata-and-shifts-back-into-communist-era-full-gear.html]