A group of hackers and a human rights organization are suing the German government for allegedly conducting illegal spying activities and aiding the National Security Agency and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
The Chaos Computer Club (CCC), one of the largest hacker groups in the world, and the International League for Human Rights (ILHR) filed a criminal complaint to German federal prosecutors on Monday. The groups are accusing the German government, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, "of illegal and prohibited covert intelligence activities, of aiding and abetting of those activities, of violation of the right to privacy and obstruction of justice" by cooperating with the NSA and the GCHQ to spy on German citizens, according to the CCC's press release.
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"After months of press releases about mass surveillance by secret services and offensive attacks on information technology systems," the group wrote in the release, "we now have certainty that German and other countries' secret services have violated the German criminal law."
A report published by the German magazine Der Spiegel revealed in October that Angela Merkel was a target of NSA surveillance. Merkel even called Obama to clarify the incident. Some German lawmakers have considered opening an investigation of their own into the NSA's practices, and they even got Edward Snowden to support it.
But the groups think the German government is not a victim, but rather an enabler of the NSA and GCHQ. That's why they are asking the prosecutors to initiate a criminal investigation, something their attorney said it's "necessary and mandatory."
"Every citizen is affected by the massive surveillance of their private communications. Our laws protect us and threatens those responsible for such surveillance with punishment," Julius Mittenzwei, an attorney for the CCC, said in a statement.
The CCC and the ILHR are also asking the prosecutors to summon Snowden as a witness and provide him safe passage to Germany and to protect him against extradition to the United States.
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