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The German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble recently proposed that police should be able to search a digital database containing passport photos and fingerprints from all German citizens.(1) Schaeuble believes that these data should be used to track individuals and make preemptive arrests in name of the "war on terror." Once arrested, a persyn could be held indefinitely without charge. Given the similarities between Schaeuble's proposal and the maneuvers by the Amerikan White House and Congress to extend surveillance and arrest powers granted under the Patriot Act, we have a few comments to make.
First, Schaeuble's proposal illustrates the principle that if they are given an inch, the reactionaries will take a mile. Schaeuble is taking advantage of laws passed by his predecessor, the Social Democrat Otto Schilly. Digitalized passports were Schilly's idea, but he swore that digital photos and fingerprints would not be stored in a central database, only on a chip on each passport. But the passport authority has already quietly collected the digital photos into a database. This is similar to the protestations of Patriot Act supporters: "Oh don't worry, these surveillance and arrest powers will only be used in very specific circumstances. It's not like we want to spy on everybody or pursue personal vendettas." Of course things have played out over the last five years much the way MIM and others foresaw: not content with their broad power, U.$. spy agencies taped domestic phones, pulled financial records on U.$. citizens, and ignored their own regulations on who can be spied upon and how. What gets talked about in Congressional hearings and on CNN can only be the tip of the iceberg.
If the pigs have the data, they will use it. Best to keep the data out of their hands in the first place.
Second, holding people indefinitely without charge is a throwback to monarchism--just what Americans like George Washington fought a war against 230 years ago.(2) This kind of thing rests on the idea that the state is infallible and above class conflict.(3) MIM has strongly criticized this trend in the United $tates, where it has also been used to justify increased repression.(4) Readers should ask themselves: are these the people I want to trust with so much power and information? Will they really be able to keep their hands out of the cookie jar, when there are so many incentives to reach in when nobody is looking? The monarchist mentality only encourages careerism and persynal vendetta. "The CIA asked for three times as much money this year as last year," says our congressional representative, in between kissing babies. "But there are one million terror cells in the United $tates, so I guess they need it." Who says there are one million terror cells? The CIA, of course.
Finally, this episode is interesting because of the role the German Green Party played paving the way for Schilly and Schaeuble. The Green Party grew out of the environmentalist and pacifist movements. Similar to its counterpart here, it has adopted "pluralism" as a core principle. Its members have a wide range of political views, from self-described anti-capitalists to those who think a form of reformed capitalism can protect the environment. Consequently, all the hard work of the more pacifist- and anti-capitalist-minded activists gets flushed down the toilet when the more "practical" wing of the party decides to support some imperialist military adventure. Back in 2001, the Greens voted for the deployment of German troops to Afghanistan, because Green leaders like then-Foreign Minister Joshka Fischer thought it was better to support the war to stay in the ruling coalition with the Social Democrats. (Fischer also supported the NATO bombing of Kosovo, and is currently dreaming up "practical" schemes to pressure Iran to give up its nuclear program.) The Greens were coalition partners with the Social Democrats when Schilly was expanding possibilities for internal spying.
For what it's worth, the Greens' eclecticism also makes it difficult for the "practical" wing to pursue its own pro-imperialist path. Many rank-and-file members plan to attend the protests at the June G-8 summit in Germany, and are openly criticizing the Green leadership's refusal to officially endorse the protests. The leadership refused to sign a statement supporting the protests, stating that it "one-sidedly" puts the blame for the problems of war and global environmental catastrophe on the leading imperialist nations. (We're not huge fans of the German "Left Party," descended from the revisionist party that formerly ruled east Germany, but they gave the Greens a good zinger: "[We're] always ready to explain the connection between capitalism and war to the greens." Oh, snap!) Although they are now no longer part of the ruling coalition, the Green leadership wants to keep their options open.
In this situation, a split would benefit both factions--but primarily the anti-imperialist faction. As we wrote in 2001, "When mushy-minded Greens say they have 'pluralism,' they do not kid. Sometimes the Greens support imperialist war against oppressed nations and sometimes they don't--just like the other imperialists. That is why the Green Party is a party of imperialism in Germany.
"The German Green Party shows Greens everywhere their future, because the German Green Party received more support in Germany than in other countries. The German Green Party is proof that purging parties is not just necessary when operating in secret in police-states like tsarist Russia. Purges are essential to preserving the quality of the party. Otherwise, everyone's work just gets wasted. MIM calls on the rank-and-file Greens who don't support the bombing of Kosovo and the invasion of Afghanistan like their leaders do to quit, take up Lenin's theory of imperialism and work with us Maoists."(5)
Notes:
1. Der Speigel, 16 April 2007.
2. www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/wim/cong/noamericans.html
3. Naiive anti-communists--or clever anti-communists who know better but
want to confuse people--often accuse communists of believing the state or
the party is infallible. In fact, the opposite is true: during the
Cultural Revolution Mao encouraged people to criticize those in the state
or party who stood for the return of capitalism. Good communists know that
the state is a tool of class struggle. As long as there are classes--and
classes still exist under socialism--there will be class struggle for
control of the state.
4. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/agitation/iraq/wmdupdate2.html
5.
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/sept112001/text.php?mimfile=germangreensafghan.TXT