Social work in the basement of policing – an introduction
by Norbert Pütter The relationship between the police and social work is disputed in Germany since the 1970s. Though the differing professional self-concepts – control and law enforcement on the one hand, assistance and support on the other hand – is recognized, the assumption that social workers and the police target the same clientele and, thus, have to cooperate is an integral part of the security policy discourse. Whereas the police developed methods of quasi-social work, the policing aspects of social work were unfolded in the context of neoliberal policies since the 1990s. Meanwhile social work is at risk to lose its independence within the diverse networks of cooperation. Summaries weiterlesen →
Access to documents and internal security by Norbert Pütter
Access of citizens to information about the state and to data, which the state collects, is an old demand of the civil liberties movement. Today, freedom of information acts exist in eleven German Länder, and at the federal level since 2006. However, security authorities are well shielded by exemption clauses, secret services do not fall under the scope of the acts and they are almost immune against access rights and parliamentary oversight. Hence, the fortification of the security apparatus against information requests is rather unaffected despite of few success stories. Summaries weiterlesen →
When the emergency button is pushed – an introduction by Heiner Busch
Moral panics and police violence are regular ingredients of crisis management. This is not only the case in the south of Europe, where the police clearly takes the role of enforcing austerity measures, but also in Germany. Stop and search operations are concentrated in poorer districts of the big cities. Where bureaucratic measures fail, the police comes into action. Summaries weiterlesen →
The Parliamentary Enquiry Committee and the Intelligence Agencies – an introduction by Wolf-Dieter Narr
The scandals concerning the NSA (National Security Agency) and previously the NSU (National Socialist Underground) have again raised the question: Who guards the internal security and who protects us from the guardians? Compared with the previous enquiry committees, the NSU commission takes a rather critical view and provides much material. However, the committee does not challenge the system of undercover informants and the intelligence agencies in general. Summaries weiterlesen →
The institutional racism of police checks and beyond by Heiner Busch
Stops and identity checks only on the grounds of the colours of the skin or the „foreign“ appearance of persons are unconstitutional and therefore do not occur, says the German government. Police officers receive special human rights and anti-discrimination training. In the government’s and the police‘ perception, racial profiling if it ever does occur is the result of an individual abuse of power. In fact, however, it is part of the logic of police controls without reasonable suspicion and inherent to the police task to control migration. Racial profiling is not only part of police stops and controls. Ethnic minorities and immigrant communities are repeatedly conceived and treated as dangerous. Summaries weiterlesen →
Way out or way off? Democracy with dynamic protective fence
by WolfDieter Narr
Since the involvement of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (FOPC, Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) in the scandal concerning the ‚NationalSocialist Underground‘ demands have been increasingly made in leftwing and leftliberal circles for the abolition of the domestic secret service. Some critics are now of the opinion that the police force, or to put it more clearly, the political police, can undertake the tasks performed until now by the FOPC, as they are better controlled and act more constitutionally. This is an obviously false conclusion. Political penal law, the essential instrument applied by the police force, has always criminalised political convictions. Linked to this are comprehensive procedural criminal and police powers for surveillance. Therefore not only the abolition of the FOPC is necessary, but also a thorough cleanup of the political penal and police laws, which are riddled with imaginary political enemies, together with a democratic reform of the police force as a whole. Summaries weiterlesen →
Accident NSU: Wrong interpretations and the usual solutions by Heiner Busch
For almost 13 years, the trio Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Böhnhard and Beate Zschäpe were able to live underground, undisturbed by police and secret services and to commit nine murders of immigrants and one police officer, two bomb attacks with dozens injured and fourteen bank robberies. There are currently four parliamentary investigation committees dealing with the „National Socialist Underground” (NSU) and the failure of the „security services” – one in the Federal Lower House of Parliament and three in regional parliaments. The Federal Government and the established parties, however, have already come to a conclusion: lack of coordination, lack of information exchange and unclear remits are supposed to be the reasons for the failure of the security services. The conclusions and demands are, accordingly, more cooperation between police and security forces and strengthening the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz). Summaries weiterlesen →
100 x CILIP: Civil liberties in the shadow of police
by Wolf-Dieter Narr
In March 1978, Bürgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP published its first issue. Since then, the journal has pursued a double agenda: it did and still does aim at providing an information service and to focus on a broad set of issues: structural data on police developments in Germany and Europe; including legal developments, personal data, deployed weapons, problems with the control of police and opportunities to create public awareness around these themes. On the other hand, this information service sought to support the work of critical civil society groups with well-analysed and convincing data. Summaries weiterlesen →
Controlling the police – a democratic matter of course by Norbert Pütter
Unlike other „western democracies”, Germany has constantly ignored the claims of international human rights bodies and national civil liberties organisations to set up independent police monitoring and complaints commissions. Ministers of the Interior and ruling parties stick to authoritarian German state traditions, in which the police shall serve the state rather than the citizens or the local community. Experiences in other countries, however, show that complaints commissions not only might help people to defend their rights in cases of police violence. They also are an instrument of managing legitimation for the police themselves. Summaries weiterlesen →
Digital underground: Web 2.0 as new arena for criminal investigators and those being labelled criminal by Matthias Monroy and Heiner Busch
Unlimited instruments to control the internet are justified by the equation of war, terrorism and organised crime. Hence the open nature of the internet is becoming the projection surface for security ideologies of all kind. The article provides an overview of current scenarios of threat and of those who articulate these. Summaries weiterlesen →
Seit 1978 Berichte, Analysen, Nachrichten zu den Themen Polizei, Geheimdienste, Politik „Innerer Sicherheit“ und BürgerInnenrechte.
