Tag Archives:

law

Data retention against file sharers

Somewhat natural that all data, once collected, induces greediness in areas that have nothing to do with the originally mentioned and intended cause – here protection from terror –, no matter if they are useful for that in the first place:

The legal committee of the German Bundesrat (federal council) apparently wants to use this retained data for civil-law information requests from rights owners like the music or movie industry… what will be next?

More at golem.de and heise.de (German).

Stop data retention - www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de

Quote of the Day (7)

The taz quotes our dear minister of the interior, Wolfgang Schäuble, in front of journalists and judges in Karlsruhe (which is the location of the German Constitutional Court):

“Wir hatten den ‚größten Feldherrn aller Zeiten‘, den GröFaZ, und jetzt kommt die größte Verfassungsbeschwerde aller Zeiten.”

(My translation: “We had the ‘greatest commander of all times’, the GröFaZ, and now we get the greatest constitutional complaint of all times.”)

Assuming the quote is correct, we see again how much the constitution and its institutions mean to him…

For other (always) inappropriate Hitler comparisons and quotes, others have been made to leave talkshows and their offices. Wouldn’t be bad here, too, in my opinion.

(via StoiBär (German))

Odd laws and (German) verdicts

Spiegel Online has a bunch of over 20 strange cases (from German courts) and laws

You want examples? :hammer:

  • If a man whirls his dance partner against her will so over the dancefloor that both fall out of a window, the dancer must pay medical costs and compensation to the woman.
  • The head of every dead whale that’s found on the British coasts belongs to the king. The tail belongs to the queen – in case she needs the bones to make a corset.
  • Even if a panel doctor declares she’s working particularly fast, she must pay back some of her fee if her balance adds up to a working time of 26 hours a day.

More on Spiegel Online (in German).

The GEZ is worried about its image…

The German version of a “TV Licencing agency”, called GEZ, wants to stop akademie.de using colloquial short names for the TV fees and other related things and force them to use long beaurocratic vocabulary – by legal means, because the colloquial names would only be used to “cause a bad image for the GEZ.”

I can’t really translate the whole thing, but it’s, in my opinion, rather causing the opposite…

Your Opinion is Important!

Scan of the bulk mailNo, I’m not referring to the oh so important polls in this blog, ;) but to a bulk mail I got today, “The big EU states mineral oil survey” – as if they were really interested in the people’s opinion. Addresses with date of birdth and especially “Kaffeefahrten” as trip prize, that is what counts for these dubious crooks, and they are doing that with letterbox companies (this time Gewinnzentrale, Postfach 1129, 49430 Neuenkirchen) for quite some time, unfortunately… :evil:

(Update:) The AK Tirol had also warned and has been confirmed.

Unfortunately, also this time there will be enough unsuspecting naïves participating to be financially worthwhile for the organizers…

31 Dec 07: Now they’re trying that with an “energy survey”…