Hackers sue German government for helping NSA spy on its citizens

The Chaos Computer Club (CCC), Europe’s largest hacker association, and the International League for Human Rights (ILMR) are suing the German government for allegedly helping foreign intelligence agencies spy on German citizens.

“After months of press releases about mass surveillance by secret services and offensive attacks on information technology systems, we now have certainty that German and other countries’ secret services have violated the German criminal law,” they said in a public statement.

“With this criminal complaint, we hope to finally initiate investigations by the Federal Prosecutor General against the German government. The CCC has learned with certainty that the leaders of the secret services and the federal government have aided and abetted the commission of these crimes.”

The complaint filed with the Federal Prosecutor General’s office claims the federal government, the presidents of the German secret services, German spies and their supervisors, the German Minister of the Interior as well as the German Chancelor Angela Merkel have either participated or aided “illegal and prohibited covert intelligence activities” that violated the right to privacy of German citizens.

“It is unfortunate that those responsible and the circumstances of their crimes have not been investigated,” says Dr. Julius Mittenzwei, attorney and CCC member.

The group is also asking that Edward Snowden be called as a witness, and to be allowed to enter Germany for that purpose and be guaranteed that he won’t be deported to the US.