[zoe4883]

Good! German opposition and political activists desperately need good encryption to organize! Large opposition party was placed under surveillance before election, its leaders wiretapped. Today activists are monitored on Internet by secret services.

[qwertox]

Just today the German online IT magazine heise.de published an article [0] claiming that the interior ministers (home secretaries?) will expect from social platforms like WhatsApp to implement backdoors so that the government can access a copy of the data. This is a wish they've been having for ages.

So, there's clearly an opposition.

[0] https://www.heise.de/news/Innenminister-Angriff-auf-Verschlu...

[estaseuropano]

Outgoing government! This article is about the incoming one.

[wolverine876]

Who are you talking about?

[jillesvangurp]

The AFD, a right wing party with quite a few ties to known neo-nazis or nazi symphatizers/apologists and also quite a bit of ties to some of the uglier right wing extremism that pops up its ugly head in Germany every once in a while. For example, there were a few arrests near the Polish border recently of some people who took it upon themselves to do a little policing in that area.

Also, it's easy to forget that this country had active right wing and left wing terrorists not so long ago.

So, yes Germany may have slightly overstepped their authority putting AFD party members under surveillance considering it is now a major party in several of its states and of course the parliament. In that sense it's a big scandal actually. But it's not entirely without reason. There are some really shady and scary people associating themselves with that party.

[wolverine876]

I'm pretty sure Nazis are outlawed in Germany. I don't think they overstepped their bounds. They'd be pretty stupid to let it happen again.