Movie Review: The Lives of Others – Between System Loyalty and Humanity
With his debut feature “The Lives of Others” (2006), Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck did more than just create a gripping…
Surveillance State
The Prince Metternich Repression: The System of Total Control (1815–1848) and the Precursor to the Modern Surveillance State
After the victory over Napoleon in 1815, peace did not bring freedom to Europe. Instead, Austrian State Chancellor Klemens Wenzel…
A Proxy Battle for Freedom of Speech: How Dr. Hans-Georg Maaßen Takes Legal Action Against the Abuse of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution at the Cologne Administrative Court
This event marks a historic precedent in the history of Western democracies: Dr. Hans-Georg Maaßen—a constitutional lawyer holding a doctorate,…
The Gestapo, Denunciation, and the Return of Political Persecution: Why We Must Learn from History
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” This oft-quoted bon mot by Mark Twain takes on an oppressive relevance…
Edward Snowden: The Cost of Truth in the Age of Total Surveillance
Edward Snowden (1983), a former IT specialist for the CIA and the NSA, triggered the largest espionage scandal in human…
Dobrindt’s Secret Reform: How the Firewall Elites are Rebuilding the Intelligence Service into a New Domestic Secret Police
The masks of the self-proclaimed guardians of democracy have finally fallen. Right at the start of the Berlin summer holidays…
Europe’s Great Firewall: How the DSA Destroys Anonymity and Reshapes the Internet After the Chinese Model
When the power structure of a technocratic elite trembles in the physical world, the battle for narrative hegemony increasingly shifts…
Denunciation: The Good Citizen Reports — The “Everyman Duty” and the Privatization of State Prosecution
The good citizen pays taxes, separates their waste, respects pedestrian crossings, and obeys the law. For a long time, this…
The EUDI Wallet: Pan-European Digital Identity as an Infrastructure for Perfect Surveillance
By the end of 2026, all European Union member states are legally mandated under the revised eIDAS 2.0 Regulation to…
The Black Cabinets: The Birth of Systematic Postal Surveillance in Occupied Germany
Long before the digital age and the invention of state trojans or algorithmic surveillance, governments had already found a highly…
Between Enlightenment and Espionage: Napoleonic Repression in Germany (1794–1814)
The era of French occupation in Germany, historically known as the Franzosenzeit, is one of the most paradoxical periods in…
On the 10th Anniversary of Guido Westerwelle’s Death: When Freedom Dies Quietly
Today marks exactly ten years since the passing of Dr. iur. Guido Westerwelle on March 18, 2016. In the current…