Reporters' Calls Tapped

Debate has heated up about professional privacy as the German government has opened the door to increased surveillance of online and telephone activity. In certain circumstances, the telephone conversations of lawyers, journalists and doctors may also be bugged.

Currently, some journalists say police have already been listening into their conversations.

According to the tagesschau online portal of German public broadcaster ARD, police have eavesdropped on conversations of two journalists and two lawyers to pursue investigations of two suspected left-wing radicals. One of the journalists works for tagesschau, another works for public broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR).

NDR staff were able to review the transcriptions of its reporter's telephone conversations with sources in northern Germany. According to the files, the Schleswig-Holstein State Office of Criminal Investigation was commissioned by the Federal Prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe to listen in on the NDR journalist.

Jobst Plog, director of NDR, said that "should the suspicion against security officials be confirmed, it would be a massive assault on press freedom."

Suspected of aiming to create terrorist organization

According to NDR, federal prosecutors' investigations of the two alleged radicals revolved around events leading up to last June's Group of Eight summit of highly industrialized nations in Germany. The two suspected radicals were thought to have been planning to create a terrorist organization.

NDR's journalist has reported on political extremism in his work for years, and his research on the phone may have lead to links involving the two police suspects.

According to the tagesschau reporter, who was permitted to look into the police file on his telephone conversations, the calls' content was in no way connected to police investigations, but instead, concerned more editorial and journalistic matters.

Authorities have also allegedly listened in on conversations among some journalists working for Berlin's daily Tagesspiegel, according to an ARD report. The online portal of the daily tageszeitung (taz) has also reported that some of its journalists' conversations have been recorded.

The taz reported that wire taps had been placed on the suspects' phones, not those of journalists, but added that police should not have listened to the calls after it was clear the suspects were talking to journalists.

"No malice intended"

A spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office told taz that officials would check into the allegations of eavesdropping, but said "no malice was intended."

He pointed out that telephone conversations are recorded by machines, and also said that police officers who transcribe the recordings cannot always recognize what is "relevant to an investigation or not."