Free Republic

Germany’s federal interior minister has presented “guidelines for a strong state in difficult times.” Some aspects already exist; others are doomed to fail in the face of constitutional reality. […] [Thomas] De Maizière envisions turning over protection of the constitution entirely to the federal government. That would require the dissolution of the agency’s 16 state offices. His rationale: No one intent upon attacking the constitution is interested in destroying governmental order “in one state alone.” Though this sounds plausible as a concept, it could turn out to be too complicated to be put into practice. Domestic security services are charged...

Sixty percent of Germans want more video surveillance in public spaces, according to a new YouGov poll published on Sunday. The public call comes in the wake of the Berlin Christmas market attack. Appearing to support government plans to change the law to allow increased video surveillance, 73 percent of Germans polled supported the idea of having larger police forces. The YouGov survey for the German news agency dpa was carried out days after Tunisian national Anis Amri plowed a truck into a Christmas market, killing 12 people and wounding nearly 50 others. Amri, who was the prime suspect, was...

Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière is planning a major limitation of privacy rights in Germany, say data protection groups. Germans will no longer have the right to know what data about them is being collected. A draft law released by the German union for data protection (DVD) this week revealed that the interior ministry was proposing to drastically limit the powers of Germany’s data protection authorities, banning them from investigating suspected breaches of people’s medical and legal records. As well as expanding video surveillance with facial recognition software, the bill would limit the government’s own data protection commissioners to checking...

Previous reports had suggested that around 1.1 million people entered Germany to seek asylum last year. But now the German government has confirmed the number was actually lower. On Friday Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière confirmed in a press conference that around 890,000 asylum seekers came to Germany last year. […] De Maizière had previously explained that the first number reported was probably too high due to multiple registrations and the inclusion of people who did not stay in Germany, such as people who went back to their homelands or left for other EU states. “The number 890,000 is still...