Markus Beckedahl: Ein Abgrund von Landesverrat

Herald: As you all know, this year we didn't have

any summer dream, but more of a summer nightmare and for the first time

in 50 years of the federal republic of Gemany
journalists were impeached

for "Landesverrat" (Treason of the nation).
It lies back now a few months

and we want to use this opportunity now,
to reflect a bit about

what actually happened, once recall the events

and shine light on the back story, but also look at

what happened since then, what the consequences are.

And to do that, please give with me a warm welcome
to the founder

and publisher of "Netzpolitik" and our favourite
"Landesverräter" (Nation traitor) Markus Beckedahl.

applaus

Herald: And...

For all our international guests, if you want to listen to the talk in English

that is totally possible. Please tone into our wonderful

translation at 80 11. Thank you!

Markus: Hello, good morning!

laughingapplause

But when you're clapping all the time, I will never finish with my 72 slides.

So...
applause

Andre can be here unfortunately, he has to lie in the sun,

I mean in the real sun.

applause

On the camp, just after the case against us was dropped we have

held a talk, so: The story about all of this investigations

I will hold very briefly. I will more focus on
what the findings are,

what we have learned, what would have to change in the laws to avoid

such investigations in the future.
Who is still interested in the background story,

as I said, the talks from the camp are online.

Yes, I believe you can download them free of charge.

The story started over a year earlier.

Last year we celebrated the 10th anniversary

and adequately for our 10th anniversary, we received
news, that the chancellery

had threatened the members of the NSA-investigation commission in the Bundestag

to press penal charges, because among others
in our blog documents had been posted

which were distributed in the context of the
investigation commission.

At that time the charges were not pursued.
There are rumours,

that Merkel was against it. She was afraid,

that that somehow was bad PR
to prosecute the press.

We felt honoured and a bit motivated

to just continue.

In this February we published parts of the
state budge documents,

which showed, that the "Verfassungsschutz"
(German secret service) was planning

massive analysis of internet contents just like that.

That was interesting, because two year after the start of the Snowden-Leaks

the answer of the government was to increase
the budget

and the authority of the secret services
to monitor the internet.

We thought, that should better be discussed,
before that is just implemented that way.

But a discussion was actually just possible,
if all the document were public,

which were confidential to that point.

To us, someone had leaked them. We had a bit space
on our servers,

so we published them, sadly we did not get the
huge debate in civil society,

we wanted. To put it in other word:
It just did not

interest people that much.
But it is our philosophy

documents we have not just to quote,
but also

if possible, openly provided for all our readers.

We are used to the Internet, we are used
to link to the sources.

applaus

and we are used, that others should also question our work.

We do not believe, that we are
the experts for everything,

and we believe also, that among our readers are many experts,

who can help us, to gain more perspectives
on documents from all angles

and for that we all need the originals.

And therefore we upload them to the net,
of course on a case by case basis,

if we do not endanger anyone by that.

But, back to the start of this year:

In this April we received another state budget plan,

which we of course published too.

Unfortunately this one did really interest none,

'cause 9:05 am it was online,
9:15 the minister of justice informed,

that he was going to reimplement the
"Vorratsdatenspeicherung" (Mass surveillance measures) now,

so our issue just die on that spot.
We found it was a pity,

'cause we really wanted to talk about:
What is the Verfassungsschutz doing there?

Is this constitutional at all, what they are doing?

Shouldn't we as society not decide first,

if we approve the measures or not?

And, shouldn't maybe the supreme court
rule first about it,

if they are even allowed to do so or not?

To put this all in context, what we published there:

state budget, some say, that is somehow
comparable with

simply just a cost draft.

After the "Landesverrat" investigation
ZEIT ONLINE (news) has published another

piece of the puzzle, namely internal
documents of the "Verfassungsschutz"

about XKeyscore. We have published, so to say, the budget planes,

which documented the implementation of this XKeyscore Software,

and another piece of the puzzle came from
Kai Biermann and Yassin Musharbash,

I think I'm constantly pronouncing their names wrong. Sorry.

On the 4th of July we hard from a radio station,
that a internet service

had published two articles in February and April,

for what they were indicted by the president
of the Verfassungsschutz.

It's no fun fact that, one day in advance
the Verfassungsschutz law

with more competences for the Verfassungsschutz
had passed the parliament.

Possibly there is a correlation, that this
story by

such a Verfassungsschutz friendly "Deutschlandfunk"
journalist

was placed one day after and not before.

Probably the "Landesverrat" investigations, media coverage

could have led to more people actually
having a look at the Verfassungsschutz law,

but it did not happen this way.

We were at first a bit surprised,
so we noticed first,

that WE are this internet service apparently,
then we thought:

Does this happen often,
that such a accusation is filed?

We then called the union for journalists and so on,

to ask about it. We thought they might know
more about this stuff. But they were like:

"Well, no idea, happened last time in the 90s or something?"

So we thought... hmmm... strange somehow.
So we called on Monday

the Verfassungsschutz and the General Attorney,

to ask about it. They did not want to tell us
anything obviously,

and then we blogged about it and waited for it.
We knew according to

this article in the Deutschlandfunk it had
to do with betraying official secrets.

There is a ruling of the supreme court,
to phrase it that way, is would be bad

for our sources, but we as individuals
could still get out of this.

And then on the 30th of July, we received a
letter, that at least throw over our

daily life in the editorial office a bit.

The general attorney notified us, that
investigations concerning "Landesverrat"

against Andre, against our source and me
were being conduced and

it already started in May.

So we thought: Well.

Laughingapplause

So we then blogged it.

Then we looked up, what does "Landesverrat" actually mean anyway?

Laughing

Our lawyers said like:
"So, there is something curious going on!

The law about it states: There must be the
intention of harming the federal republic."

and we actually wanted a better federal
republic,

I mean, we wanted a federal republic,
where the basic right we have

were applied! That's the opposite of, what
Landesverrat (Treason against the nation) is!

heavy applause

And he thought: "Well, if the law is the way
it is. We will fight through this in the worst case."

Then we informed ourselfs again:
How did "Landesverrat" actually come about?

I mean, one only knew the kind of thing
from the Spiegel scandal,

so from history books, it went even further.
Erich Kästner and so on,

so a very explosive... well, symbolic
phrase!

The short version was: Thursday we received
the letter, uploaded it and so on.

Sunday all of the sudden we were in the
centre of a small state crisis.

Tuesday the General Attorney resigns.

The Monday after, everything was buried
very quickly.

But: Now starts, what all did happened or

how we evaluated the whole thing.

To start with we had a lot of luck.

So we were lucky, that they charged us for
"Landesverrat",

so such a symbolic, which instantly
generates this connection to

Franz Josef Strauß and the Spiegel Scandal
in the heads of many people.

It hadn't been quite as practical, if they
didn't charge us with §94 StGB "Landesverrat"

but with §95 "Offenbarung von Staatsgeheimnissen"
(revealing of official secrets),

so let alone the Hashtag
#offenbarungvonstaatsgeheimnissen would've

been to long.
laughing

We were even lucky, that the INFORMED us
via mail.

As far as we can reconstruct it, it looks
a lot like,

that the General Attorney ordered an
external report by a professor close to the BND,

who should affirm the view of the
Verfassungsschutz,

that we published official secrets,

and if it had turned out that way...,
and this BND-professor told the

General Attorney, that he unfortunately
hadn't finished yet and

had to go on vacation.
But if he had finished,

he would probably come to that conclusion
and then through that

we only would have known from a police
raid,

that there is something going on in this
direction.

Therefore we took the message from that
just to be prepare for that.

We didn't think then, that we would in
Germany, in a constitutional democracy,

have to be afraid of raid at home and
the office

due to our work.

Now we know that, now we are prepared,

if it someday comes to that.

Then we were lucky:
David vs Goliath, I mean,

Star Wars was just released. Mr. Maaßen
(president of the Verfassungsschutz) would

be the perfect Emperor.
laughing

We are the rebels, so besides David-
Goliath

Star Wars is also quite fitting.

In any case, this huge symbolic,
We were just lucky.

We had such a stress test before, 6 years ago.

That time we published internal documents
of the "Deutsche Bahn" (German railway).

We could test a bit the mechanics of the
new public

in such a David-Goliath situation,
Streisand-effect and so on,

and now we could play the same thing in
big.

And most importantly the luck we had was,

that this was happening in the "Sommerloch",

So, two weeks before we would have been
forgotten about due to the Greek crisis,

two weeks due later the refugees situation,
but exactly at that time

when we received this letter,
just nothing else happened at all.

Totally great, Thanks!

laughingapplause

So but first off we had to prove that
we are good citizens,

at the same time, which was the funniest
thing,

the government or the "Deutsche Bank" as
standard initiative of the BDI

together with the President send us also
such a certificate,

'cause we were honoured within the "Deutschland-
Land der Ideen"(Germany land of ideas) campaign.

We didn't know at that point what to do
with this honouring,

should we even make it public?

Then we thought: How useful, that shows
this weird picture

and shows instantly somehow how
schizophrenic this is:

Parts of the government pay us tribute,
while the other part, well does the same,

but doesn't intended it that way.

laughing

Well, in any case something happens, that
we could have known,

but we didn't: The Admin was on vacation
and the blog was gone.

We then needed a mirror page, where
at least the information

could still be found.

Then something happen, which I never
experienced before:

I couldn't use Twitter any more,
for example, 'cause there were to many

informations with our Hashtag and so on,

my Browser shut down all the time,
I had to shut down for

a few hours, but there was a huge crowd
declaring solidarity,

incountable Supertweets, eg. here from
@NeinQuarterly and also many other things,

Links to our donation site, because we
had obviously problems, if we had to fight

this, then we would have needed a lot of
money,

for the lawyers alone and we were complete
underfunded at that time.

In any case, then we had this funny
situation, that

all of the sudden even our IBAN-number
became a trending topic.

Our bank was proud to.
laughing

And at the same time to illustrate the
summer void of news, that was one of

several days "tagesschau.de", where you got
the impression that there was nothing else;

Probably nothing else was happening at
that time, I haven't hear of anything,

but here you also don't see anything.

Something else: Very nice was also the
solidarity of the ZDF heute-jornal.

They had written netzpolitik.org instead of
heute.de

laughingbig applause

Well, and the server was down again.
laughing

Now we have a new one.
laughing

So, in case that happens again, we could
use a bit more capacity.

Well, so we had to present ourselfs also
somehow

as even better citizens.
laughingapplause

And then it was okay, I mean the most of
the press had our back.

We had hoped so, but we did not expect
this huge solidarity at all.

That was really great for sure, to know
they have your back

and more than anything it's great, when
all the things

you normally watch yourself are reporting
about you,

such as extra3, heute-show and so on.
(comedy news shows) The only sad thing was,

that we were so deep in the middle of
summer, that they did not had any TV-episodes,

but they had to do it online.

Well, and then there was a little uprising
of the CDU-members of parliament, who did

not understand why so many people showed
their solidarity to us.

Jens Koeppen on the upper left is by the
way the the head of the commission for

digital agenda in the Bundestag. (Parliament)

That also took just one day. The important
people in the CDU,

had their colleges under control again
right the next day,

and were like: "That's a game we can't win!"

It was also very funny, Mr. Bosbach
declared immediately 1,5 days later:

"However inexplicable the initiation of
the investigation

against the blog "netzpolitik.org" was for
actual, legal reasons..."

Then he was of course attacking the social
democrates.

But this was at least for us the signal:
Okay, the government is on the retreat.

Not everyone did get the hint:

Hans-Peter Uhl thought still, that now
ISIS could draw from

budget plans conclusions how the
Verfassungsschutz was organised.

Well, Hans-Peter Uhl has also some other
problems, I think.

laughing

In any case, this came in quite handy for
us. It was summer. We were a few from

our team and a few friends, who wanted
absolutely to rally.

We thought first, well, okay a rally there
will be coming the few well known people.

Anyway we did a demonstration.
2500 people were there!

laughing
Also very helpful to

to create the right images.

But we actually thought: after two days
it is all over. Heiko Maas the minister

of justice had to cut his vacation short
for the first time,

went to the press, like: "Everything
under control, keep calm

and carry on!"
Some interview request were rejected.

We partied and, well, on the next day we
were actually in a state scandal,

which took almost international proportions.

To understand it must be said, that
Germany was always

pointing fingers on the international
stage,

when ever there was a oppressive regime,

where journalists and bloggers were
suppressed somehow.

Well and now there was such a case in
Germany,

where journalist were threatened with
investigations,

where usually immediately the foreign
minister would intervene.

That was somehow funny even for us.
We appeared everywhere:

Here from Nepal to Greek, so in all the
continents,

almost from all counties we received
articles.

We didn't get them all processed, so we
were called

every minute for some question from the
most bizarre media

an the planet. We were very proud to be in
the "Titanic" (Satire magazine),

with this page of "Landesverrateslust"

laughing
(parody of gardening magazine "Landlust")

Once "Titanic". Well, the FAZ (frankfurt common newspaper) had a small campaign against us.

We thought that was cute, because we
thought, we can't lose anything,

when a news paper that is 10 times as big

in one unearthly bad article article after
the other tries to explain,

that we actually are the bad guys and not
the good ones

and then use words like: "The democracy
didn't mean anything to

netzpolitik.org or other swarm-like
collective intelligent beings anyway,

look at child pornography, or
telecommunications data retention,
or copyright."

Or the head of FAZ-Feuilleton about some
animal, that was in our office,

because it was a gift from Anna from
Japan. The "mascot" got half a page

of scribbling, while we just thought:
"what mascot???"

We hadn't even noticed it standing there.

Well, in any case that was a very funny
thing, but at the same time also

somehow completely bizarre. So the FAZ-
politics editors had almost

always exactly the opposite opinion

and pointed at us and said: "That are the
activists, we are the journalists!"

And tried to denounce therefore our press
right privilege.

On the other hand we had thought this
through the last years.

We had the official confirmation of the
government, the "Bundespressekonferenz"

and Parliament, that we were journalists,
because they had given us

IDs as journalists.

Then there was some small subplot:

We had thrown out a team of Russia Today,

due to the fact that they were the only
ones, that did not notify us in advance

and all of the sudden entered the office,
started to film and we had the principle

-that wasn't even against Russia-
but we would not talk to government

controlled media trying to exploit us to
somehow relativise the freedom of the

press in the own country.
applause

So we said we would not talk to media of
governments applause

of countries that suppress journalists,
that threaten journalists with death.

And Russia is one of those.
We twittered that.

And then we had suddenly all conspiracy
theorists

who were...
I have never received so many death threats

before, because somehow I was responsibly
for the Ukraine conflict,

because I was 13 years ago in the Green
party youth. laughing

So I didn't really get it, but political
education was

reduced drastically in the last years,
I think

we need there a bit more money from the
state budget.

applause
But let's look at the still unsolved puzzle:

We still wonder: why?
laughing

So, why did the General Attorney start the
investigations in the first place,

if everyone could have seen, that
there is no will

to harm the republic at all?!

So we can only imagine, that there must
have been some political pressure

from the Verfassungsschutz,
from the ministry of internal affairs,

maybe from the chancellery.

But the question is also, why would anyone
want to be responsible for that?

And also a question was, that later become
obvious:

When we heard the news in the
"Deutschlandfunk", that because of

revealing official secrets they started
investigations against our source,

we read the "Cicero"-ruling of 2007 very
carefully.

2005 there are a house search at "Cicero",
this monthly magazine.

It was about revealing of official secrets,
some secrets which were disclosed

to journalists and they, federal police
and Schily, tried back then to

find hint on the source using a raid in
in the editorial office.

The supreme court ruled 2007:
"The revealing of official secrets are no

legitimate reason for a raid."

So they already started our investigation
on a higher level,

just to test if they could get away with it.

If the supreme court has already forbidden
the other thing,

let's just try "Landesverrat" or something.

We would have liked for the case to be
continued

to get a ruling, but sadly the
investigations were discontinued

very fast, which took the opportunity

to just clarify this by the courts.

Especially to clarify that we had the right
to do that at all times.

Then, Hans-Georg Maaßen, our president
of the Verfassungsschutz,

the emperor and so on, had already
declared that on the 4th of May,

on the symposium of the Verfassungsschutz,
where by the way the Deutschlandfunk journalist

was moderating, which later uncovered
the first hint.

He was saying back then, that our work or
the leaking with the help of journalists

would damage the work of the secret
services a great deal.

Furthermore he was talking about some
secret information being printed by

the media. Actually, we did never have a
printing press, we just

put it out in the Internet, but okay...

We did talk this as a reason to release a
new sticker series,

you can get some later, at front left.
applause

It was very interesting to, how Maaßen
tried to make excuses

all the time, that he was innocent, that
he just did his duty and

that someone had to do this.

We now know, that in the last years there
were just

just three cases were filed, concerning
well, revealing official secrets,

or generally the leaking of documents
to journalists from the

secret sevices. Three cases and two of
them were us.

applause
The BND did do something like this yet.

But he was saying: "That is completely
normal!!" Tried to suggest, that that was

completely usual procedure and that he
by the way had nothing to do

with it, because the charges were pressed
against unknown.

At some point we got the document,

it looked like this.
Which is like right in your face.

This charge against unknown,

even featuring our names.

More than anything the Verfassungsschutz
had managed

in two files to write my name two times
wrong.

laughing

I mean luckily the is not a single person
in Germany

that would have such a name, but the
problem was,

what would it mean, if your were suspected
due to

a wrong name?

Okay, I have to hurry a bit!

Our lawyers later only got censored
documents, better to say...

-hu? why did it proceed atomatically?-

... just censored files, we think that all
the time they kept,

two versions parallel.

There are some notices of conversations
between General Attorney and

Verfassungsschutz, which were held by
phone or email,

but do not appear there.

Our lawyers found that to be very curious,
we would have liked to publish

files, but we are not allowed to see them,
cause they are ranged as more secret

than the documents, we published,

'cause the Verfassungsschutz....
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The Verfassungsschutz had to explain or
had notified the General Attorney in the files

why we had revealed relevant secrets and

well, the assessment of the
Verfassungsschutz is more secret than

the documents we published. So incredibly
bizzare!

At some point we noticed that, oh,
investigations of "Landesverrat" mean,

they can legally tap us actually since 2,
3 months.

That was possible, but for a few moments
it felt for us like a problem...

-well, hu, what just happened? -

...like a problem, because we thought,
okay now we could have a real

problem, if they bugged everything at our
place.

They told us afterwards, that the BKA
(police) just had done

low level investigations,
well, hu, you can trust them more or less

at least I think. The problem is,
how believable is the statement of

the Government, that the Verfassungsschutz

did not watch us? I mean who should've
controlled that?

If you want know more about the risks ask
(mandatory drug cover statement)
the victims of the NSU.

(Neonazi underground killer group)
aplause

Then we had the problem, that many parts
of the government didn't...

have not told the truth in the media.

Here is Emily Haber, secretary of security
in the ministry of internal affairs,

who said: "Well, yes, the president of the
Verfassungsschutz has

stopped at some point" and that was it.

Else we had never known.

Afterwards it became clear, that half of
the ministry for internal affairs

was informed about the cases and
investigations and so on.

(Minister) Thomas de Maizière of course
didn't noticed anything, Quote:

"The necessary criminal investigation of
the culprit or culprits only

gain any political importance due to the
media coverage and discussion,

which then made it necessary to
personally inform the minister."

This is how you describe the system of
Thomas de Maizère.

Fun Fact: The husband of Emily Haber is a
diplomat, who was spied on

in the context of the BND-Selectors
scandal.

Well, then there was a huge
"Bundespressekonferenz" about this
(press conference with deputies of the government)

on Monday, after we published it,
over one hour with a lot of

questions. Here the Speaker for the BMI
was like: "Well I talked to everyone,

who had a relevant position, and nobody
knew anything" right?

That is a most brilliant rhetoric, in other
words: obfuscation tactic.

Later it became clear: At least after
the 21th April the government knew

the plans and the investigations and
we assume, that

they at that point they discussed
strategies.

But who took part, we don't know, because
the chancellery does not

take records of such important meetings.

But then the Green party questioned the
ministers of the government

one by one, whoms deputies had taken
part and

the different ministries had to answer,

that there deputies had been there, so it
was possible to tell,

who had been there, but none wanted to
take responsibility.

In addition the Green party asked, if it
was normal to talk about such

procedures with foreseeable large,
political meaning

without reports or taking any records,

and the government was like:
Well, yes that's normal, no panic!

The ministry of justice knew already two
months in advance

including the minister, who declared after the
media coverage then,

that this had to be ended now very fast.

We just wonder why didn't he do that
before?

Well, I have to hurry!

Let's come to...

-hu? Never happened before!

Need a new Laptop!-

What do we learn?
Our requests:

First off, we need a new definition of
official secrets.

At the moment the authorities decide for
themself, what is a secret, and we think

that is wrong! We need a new definition
of "Staatsgeheimnis",

so that developments of history in the
public interest are not

secrets and are not covered by either
§94 "Landesverrat",

or §95 "Offenbarung von Staatsgeheimissen"
(revealing of official secrets)

applause
That would help journalists,

to be threatened by this sword of Damocles
(A danger constantly hovering over you).

We need a protection of whistle blowers
act, that deserved that name!

Germany is a developing country, when it
comes to that.

That can not be!
yeayea, I'll hurry!

Besides we were lucky, Andre and I are
both professional journalists in our

editorial office, but there are others,
who write

for us voluntarily. If they had published
this story,

they wouldn't have had the same rights
we did, for example

they had not right to remain silent, or
better a court

had to clarify that, if they have, because

The legal definition for freedom of the
press talks about profession.

We say: Freedom of the press has to apply
for everyone, who submits to journalistic

standards and duties and work as a
journalist and not just for those,

who do this for money!
huge applause

Also to insure the protection of the
sources,

the Telecommunications data retention
has to go! There are many other reasons

for that, but I say it now just from a
journalistic perspective.

applause
And most importantly the new law against

"Datenhelerei" has to go! And we will
support a lawsuit against it!

We need to quit mass surveillance

and to control the secret services!

So the real Scandal, besides
"Landesverrat" is,

that two years after the Snowden leaks

this is seen as test for future cases,
and the surveillance is increasing

massively supported by the government!
What we wanted to say:

Never give up! We will continue, despite
mass surveillance and so on.

We were a little disappointed that the
campaign did not last so long,

we had still a lot of ideas, what we
could do.

We would be glad to receive more documents
and as a Thanks for the investigations

we leaked the BND-strategies for
extending the net surveillance.

You can read all on our page.
applause

And so, Thanks to all of you
for your support!

It helped a great deal to have so many
supporters

in the civil society, in the media,
in our communities

else we would not have survived this.

So, if you are in favour of our work,
you can support us:

netzpolitik.org/spenden or we have
left over some

very cool T-shirts and Hoodies and bags.
There are somewhere...

Where are they? A right! Here in front.
There are stickers, too,

featuring Hans-Georg Maaßen, else...
laughing

Thank you very much! Do more "Landesverrat"
and have fun on the congress!

applause

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