Anti-Terrorism laws have more lives than cats

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Back in the 70's the leftist terrorists of the RAF began to challenge the West German state and society with acts of terror. This provoked several anti-terror laws well into the 1990's, which added powers for criminal investigations.

Some of these powers - especially the "Rasterfahndung" (dragnet investigation) - proved to be utterly and completely, 100% useless. That didn't lead to their extinction despite the fact that the RAF dissolved in 1998, though.

There was no use for such laws for a while, but terror was back in fashion by 2001. We could have assumed that the state already had the necessary anti-terror laws (and some unnecessary ones) - but that would have been naive. There was of course a push for additional legislation to empower the state (supposedly only) in his fight against terrorists.

Back in 2004, a national conference of judges passed a resolution to demand that such laws should be limited in time.

That doesn't seem to do the trick either, for one such law - the especially obscene so-called Patriot Act - was at least partially limited in time.

Current reports about how this one got extended and is about to be extended again, likely without a real discussion, are not exactly encouraging.

It's obvious that such laws mean a shift towards a police state. History shows that the existence of such laws does not satisfy the law&order fanatics; they want ever more competencies for criminal and intelligence investigations. History also provides evidence that such laws affect others than terrorists as well.

Such laws even seem to fail to expire when they were written as limited in time laws.

Finally, it looks as if no reversal of such laws takes place, ever.

In other words; we should do something about this, for else we're on a long-term path towards a police state.

S O

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