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Gemeinsames Terrorabwehrzentrum, G.T.A.Z.
“Joint Terrorism Defense Center.” Apparently the German police and secret services have been working together at this institution since its founding in 2004 under poor Otto Schily. Many Germans are...
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Aufsichtsrat für Privatsphäre und Freiheitsrechte
“Privacy & Civil Liberties Oversight Board,” oversight in this case meaning not overlooking but supervising, or at least providing their boss with advice. The White House has had one of these since...
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Die Verharmloser
“The harmlessers.” Pejorative hurled in June 2013 at ruling-coalition German politicians who said the U.S.A.’s spying on domestic and international emails, phone calls, video chats, text chats and...
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Schwachstellen in Sicherheitsprodukte einbauen
“Building in vulnerabilities in security products,” one of several methods the N.S.A. and G.C.H.Q. used to unlock encryption methods previously thought secure, according to the Guardian.co.uk,...
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“Völlig achtlos kann sich der Verbraucher nicht verhalten.”
“Consumers cannot behave entirely heedlessly,” said a representative of Germany’s federal-level consumer protection agency, reminding Vodafone customers to keep an eye on their bank accounts for any...
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“Datenschutz muss so wichtig werden wie Umweltschutz”
“Data protection must become as important as environmental protection,” said Bundespräsident Joachim Gauck in his German Unity Day speech on 03 Oct 2013. Recalling similarites between how they...
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Anti-F.I.S.A.-Klausel
Anti-Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act clause. E.U. justice commissioner Viviane Reding has had trouble passing her data protection reform. Years of debates, thousands of amendment proposals,...
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Bankendaten-Transfer ausgesetzt
Stopped the transfer of banking data. On 23 Oct 2013 members of the European Parliament parties the Social Democrats, Greens, Leftists and (libertarianesque) Liberals voted 280 to 254 to stop providing...
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Null Null Sieben
The 007 license plate of the car that dropped off Chancellor Merkel at the E.U. summit on 24 Oct 2013 in Brussels, where the hot unofficial topic was outrage at revelations about U.S. spying on the...
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L.K.W.-Maut
Truck toll. Germany has a relatively new national toll on trucks. On 06 Nov 2013 it became known that interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich (C.S.U.) had wanted to use data collected during the...
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Detekteien
Private detective agencies. A Spiegel.de article dated 2008 said this was an unregulated and unsupervised but burgeoning security industry in Germany, sometimes employing former Stasi cooperators. The...
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College Bescherming Persoonsgegevens
Dutch for “Data Protection Authority,” a government office in Holland. Google has been invited to testify at a data protection hearing in Holland. Süddeutsche.de ‘s 29 Nov 2013 article said the head of...
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Internet-Ausschuss im Bundestag
Happy holidays! The Bundestag announced plans to create its own standing internet committee [ständiger Internet-Ausschuss], responsible for online issues. Though not entirely neglected, the interface...
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Deutscher Verkehrsgerichtstag
“German Traffic Court Day,” a misleading calque. This is apparently a fruitful annual meeting of traffic experts, from government and academia, organized by an e.V. association. This year’s topics...
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Doch drohnenfähige Handydaten!
Cell phone data are droneable after all! Last summer Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst or BND, admitted they’d been sharing phone data with U.S. intelligence agencies...
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Verbandsklagerecht der Verbraucherschutzorganisationen
Right for an association to file suit, for consumer protection organizations. The new justice minister and consumer protection boss, Heiko Maas (S.P.D.), said he is thinking about making it possible...
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Patienteninformation & Patienteneinwilligung
“Patient information form and patient consent form,” often translated into English as “informed consent” which sounds like a single document rather than the German pair of patient information materials...
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Bildungsbroker-Blödsinn
Education broker balderdash. A British charity called the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas.com) which “controls admissions to U.K. universities,” charging fees of ~£23 per student to...
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Doktrin der Dritte
“Third-party doctrine.” An interesting loophole in the few privacy protections U.S. Americans and their customers think they have. Any information you have deliberately shared with a company is no...
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Handschrift des Arztes muss lesbar sein
“Physicians’ handwriting must be legible” in patients’ medical records according to the current version of Germany’s patients’ rights law, passed last year. Frank Leopold, head of a Verein that...
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