…and it didn’t turn out well.

Yesterday, posted stories about the re-militarization of Japan. Today:

After years of heated debate, the German Bundestag agreed Friday on the creation of a new anti-terror bill that is designed to promote communication and sharing of information between federal and state security services. It will also include the creation of a controversial national security database and increased surveillance powers for the police and intelligence agencies.

The proposal cleared the lower house of parliament with the support of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s grand coalition of Christian and Social Democrats. If the bill is approved by Germany’s upper house, the Bundesrat, in discussions on Dec. 15, it will become law effective Jan. 1.

[snip]

The idea is that all police and intelligence agencies, both at the federal and national level, would gather information about terror suspects and terrorist organizations in a central database that would be accessible to all crime-fighting agencies.

At present, Germany’s 37 agencies do that separately. The central anti-terrorism database would also contain information about banking, telecommunication and Internet information regarding the suspects.

[snip]

Some members of the Social Democrats as well as members of the opposition Greens and the Left Party have expressed concerns that easily accessible information on terrorism suspects could be misused as well as create legal problems given the differing information-gathering methods of the police and intelligence agencies are allowed to employ.

Giving both police and intelligence services equal access to personal information about suspects is a sensitive issue in Germany, given abuses under both the Nazis and by communist East Germany.

There have also been fears that innocent people may become wrongly labeled as terrorists once they are included in the database as part of an investigation. “Whoever gets entered into that database will become a terrorist suspect,” Greens politician Wolfgang Wieland said.

[snip]

The existing laws, which went into effect in early 2002, allow police and secret services to use telephone communications, e-mails, faxes, bank accounts and travel data as sources of information. Under the proposed revisions, access to the same would be expanded. In addition, Germany’s foreign intelligence service, BND, would have wider access to domestic police databases. Article