There are several examples of sacrificing liberty for security in a G7 country in the article below. Also the justification of "getting in line with other countries" is used for allowing civilian SIGINT practices previously banned. Thursday January 8 11:32 AM EST Germany to Restore Surveillance BONN, Germany (Reuters) - German political leaders agreed Thursday to allow police to bug apartments of suspected criminals, restoring a crime-fighting tool banned since abuses by the secret police in the Nazi era. Leaders from Chancellor Helmut Kohl's center-right coalition and the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) said they had reached a deal allowing police to plant microphones in private homes of suspected criminals for the first time since 1945. Both houses of parliament are now expected to quickly pass the long-debated measure, which police have argued was needed to better fight organized crime and bring the country in line with other nations that allow electronic surveillance. Germany, which reacted to the Gestapo's abuses with some of the Western world's most extensive civil liberties laws, has long resisted any relaxation in constitutional protections that have kept police out of private homes. Interior Minister Manfred Kanther said the agreement would give police the necessary tool to fight organized crime. "This is a decisive step toward more effectively fighting crime," Kanther said. "We can now keep surveillance on suspected gangster apartments and we will be able to better fight money laundering." The opposition SPD, which controls the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, said it would support the measure after the government agreed to partial exemptions for some professional groups such as priests, attorneys and journalists. Police will be required to obtain advance court permission for any surveillance. Previously, police were only given rare exemptions to the constitutional law protecting the private home. They were allowed to use listening devices or electronic surveillance only with court permission if there was concrete evidence that a serious crime was about to take place. Now authorities will have the power to use eavesdropping methods far more extensively and will also for the first time be able to bug apartments after a crime has been committed to obtain evidence. Germany's post-war constitution barred police from electronic surveillance, telephone taps and intercepting mail. The bans on telephone taps and mail intercepts were relaxed in the 1970s amid a wave of left-wing guerrilla attacks. ------------------------------------------------------------ David Honig Orbit Technology honig@otc.net Intaanetto Jigyoubu "How do you know you are not being deceived?" ---A Compendium of Analytic TradeCraft Notes, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA