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1.  

   

   Anonymous Coward, Mar 2nd, 2010 @ 5:49pm

   
   

   More evidence of the eventual public victory over corporate and government tyranny. Still, we have a LONG ways to go and things won't get fixed for a LONG time.

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2.  

   HE went THATA way

   

   wasn't me man, Mar 2nd, 2010 @ 6:38pm

   
   

   and ya know that court is right. When you feel that way you will get more irritable and they know that this is pushing to far and see that if they dont stop this stupidity that serious consequences are going to start.
   
   try it ...sleep on your front porch all summer.
   shower with a camera , have no privacy anywhere.
   
   go ahead i dare you.

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3.  

   Religion registration

   

   Cathy, Mar 2nd, 2010 @ 6:48pm

   
   

   When I lived in Germany in 2005 I had to register with the town and *tell them my religion*. Ostensibly this was to figure out how to tax the local churches (based on how much of the population was using them) but it made me really uncomfortable, as someone Jewish, telling the German government that. What were my data protection rights there?

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4.  

   Re: HE went THATA way

   

   Hephaestus (profile), Mar 2nd, 2010 @ 6:56pm

   
   

   "try it ...sleep on your front porch all summer.
   shower with a camera , have no privacy anywhere."
   
   There are web sites that specialize in that actually

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5.  

   Re: Religion registration

   

   Anonymous Coward, Mar 2nd, 2010 @ 7:01pm

   
   

   can't they just tax the churches based on income instead? Wouldn't that make more sense? Then again, who am I to expect governments to make any sense?

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6.  

   Perfect

   

   OldGeek, Mar 2nd, 2010 @ 7:10pm

   
   

   "there's evidence that it helps to obscure important data by burying the data in tons of more data", precisely why we have such data retention laws. It's almost impossible to find what your looking for, just what the politicians want.

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7.  

   Re: Religion registration

   

   Anonymous Coward, Mar 2nd, 2010 @ 8:18pm

   
   

   In Germany, were people allowed to claim they were a Jedi Knight?
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_census_phenomenon
   
   or possibly a Pastafarian?

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8.  

   Privacy

   

   Pixelation, Mar 3rd, 2010 @ 1:10am

   
   

   Contrary to what Google would like our politicians to believe, we expect privacy. Even using the intertubes.
   
   Nice to see a sensible ruling.

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9.  

   Re: Religion registration

   

   jd, Mar 3rd, 2010 @ 1:51am

   
   

   They do this to distribute the taxes TO the churches. Each working citizen who claims a religion pays a church tax (mandatory, federally enforced tithing). That money is then distributed based on the number of people registered to each religious group. It is possible to register with no specific religion so that one does not have to pay that tax.
   
   That being said, I would still feel weird registering as Jewish. I get kinda nervous because I don't register as Catholic.

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10.  

    Don't be too happy

    

    techflaws.org (profile), Mar 3rd, 2010 @ 4:19am

    
    

    The german high court only said that the law in it's current form is unconstituional (basically telling politians what sloppy job they've done yet again crafting legislation) but that collecting data on all communications generally is allowed! Only the access to it will be restricted.
    
    So all politicians have to do is to come up with a less broad law citing certain felonys it applies to (like terrorism) and the surveillance technology can remain in place. To top it all off the court also hinted at the idea that giving rights holders access to IP adresses to start civil lawsuits against alleged filesharers would be ok.

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11.  

    Re: Re: Religion registration

    

    Anonymous Coward, Mar 3rd, 2010 @ 5:05am

    
    

    No way.
    Mandatory tithing ... whoa
    That's messed up

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12.  

    Dutch situation

    

    Marcel de Jong (profile), Mar 3rd, 2010 @ 5:57am

    
    

    I wish the Dutch government would listen to this as well.
    
    Currently, the proposed data retention law in NL state a term of 12 months (initially it was 18 months, the minimum stated by the EU was 6 months), and for the new public transit card they are actually keeping data for a whopping 7 years!

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13.  

    

    crade (profile), Mar 3rd, 2010 @ 10:47am

    
    

    "and potentially harmed the rights of German citizens by having them feel like they're under constant observation"
    
    Man I wish more nations cared about this!

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14.  

    Re: Re: Religion registration

    

    gh, Apr 2nd, 2010 @ 8:00am

    
    

    But only a handful of religious organizations in Germany prefer the government to collect their tithing by payroll taxes. It's namely the Catholic Church, the Jewish Council and the Protestant Church.
    
    Most smaller religious groups (like all Evangelical churches and the Latter-Day Saints) collect their tithing independently from the government by asking their members to pay their share.
    
    In Germany a church has to register with the state government and be officially recognized a so called Entity of Public Law in order to collect money through payroll taxes and be able to teach their religion in public schools. Most churches won't do this. Though the Latter Day-Saints are for example registered in the state of Hesse. But they do not collect any taxes.

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