Germany: Return of the Stasi Police State?

The Gatestone Institute ^ | January 25, 2018 | Judith Bergman

[detective]

Germany's new law requires social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to censor their users on behalf of the government. Social media companies are obliged to delete or block any online "criminal offenses" within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint -- regardless of whether the content is accurate or not.

Social media platforms now have the power to shape the form of current political and cultural discourse by deciding who will speak and what they will say.

Notice the ease with which the police chief mentioned that he had filed charges to silence a leading political opponent of the government. That is what authorities do in police states: Through censorship and criminal charges, they silence outspoken critics and political opponents of government policies, such as Beatrix von Storch, who has sharply criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel's migration policies.

While such policies would doubtless have earned the German authorities many points with the old Stasi regime of East Germany, they more than likely contravene the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to which Germany is a party, as well as the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

[PIF]

According to some here the Stasi were merely collecting information like a census taker, certainly not undertakers - they got a bad rep evidently. Information collectors by definition don’t take prisoners certainly, at least it seems for some.

Sorry your Dad had to go through all that - it was a very rough time for a lot of people. But in the end he was finally able to realize his dream, a good thing for anyone.