Deutsche Telekom Secretly Tracked Phone Calls

Dekortage writes "German telephone giant Deutsche Telekom has admitted to secretly tracking the phone calls between board members and journalists, in an effort to identify media leaks about internal affairs. As noted by the German Journalists' Association, 'This company has special access to the records of its customers.... That means it has a special obligation to be trustworthy.' DT denies having eavesdropped; it merely tracked the calls dialed."

Re:The Solution

[Mark Trade]

Actually, if you know that you are subject of surveillance, you have a whole arsenal of methods to evade from it. It you aren't, and that's the sneaky little problem with it, you are an open book.

Oh, and they did not only monitor outgoing calls in the company HQ. They tracked all phone calls they were servicing in the whole country and then ran searches against business and private phone numbers of known journalists and employees. So not even at home you were secure.

Re:double-edged

[Timosch]

Plus even under new laws, they only have to store the data, but may not access it without the permission of a judge, and only in cases of danger to life or the constitution (as to an injunction by the Federal Constitutional Court, the trial about the constitutionality of this law is still pending...)

Nah - self inflicted..

[Anonymous Coward]

The slide started when they went after tax dodgers using stolen data. At that point the situation became SIMILAR to the US (there, I mentioned the US, happy now?) in that some are above the law provided they find a cute enough excuse:

- "He's a terrorist so we can torture him as long as he's not in the US"/"We can lock up anyone without due process or fair hearing as long as it's not on US soil" (US, Guantanamo Bay - the original reaction was understandable, the continuation of a clear wrong isn't)
- "Oops" (US bombing a Chinese Embassy)
- "I shot this man, but he looked like a terrorist" (UK, Tube bombing, Brazilian got shot without any detectable reason or provocation, police got off as usual).
- "I am ABOVE the law, 'coz I have to protect our ceetizeens" (US, by means of close to 150 "Signing statements" President Bush has conveniently exempted himself from well over 200 laws)
- "Those evil evil tax dodgers are evil, I tell you." (evil enough to ignore the fact that the German tax office didn't just BUY stolen goods, they SOLD THEM ON to other countries - in total violation of their own laws on stolen goods. Next time you buy a stolen TV, well, the government did it first).

Transparency and accountability are the hallmark of a true democracy. Germany wasn't doing too badly until they pulled this stunt with Liechtenstein. Had they followed the law, well done. But they patently didn't. This lot is simply trying to join the "exempt" club.

Re:Summary incorrect

[Tom]

I don't think Germany even has laws that are adequate for crimes of this scale. After all, data is knowledge, knowledge is power, power is abusable. More data means more knowledge means more abuse. It is time for lawmakers to react.

Knowing beats thinking. :-)

Germany has several laws against this, in fact. At least three were very obviously breached, and criminal proceeds are very likely to be initiated very soon.

Source: I work at a german telecommunications company (not T-Com). Due to my position I had to sign extensive paperwork about all the laws I have to know and follow when I started working there.