Freiheit statt Angst (Freedom not fear) is a political protest march, repeatedly taking place in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

since 2006. The main issue is citizens'

data privacy Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as data pr ...

. The protests in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

in the last years were the largest demonstrations against public surveillance since the boycott of the

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

in West Germany in the 1980s. From 2007 to 2011 the event has been organized by the civil rights association Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung (working-group

data retention Data retention defines the policies of persistent data and records management for meeting legal and business data archival requirements. Although sometimes interchangeable, it is not to be confused with the Data Protection Act 1998. The differen ...

). Its largest protest took place in 2009 with around 25,000 participants.

History

2006

The first protest march called ''Freiheit statt Angst'' happened on 20 October 2006 in cooperation with the

Big Brother Awards The Big Brother Awards (BBAs) recognize "the government and private sector organizations ... which have done the most to threaten personal privacy". They are named after the George Orwell character Big Brother from the novel ''Nineteen Eigh ...

Bielefeld Bielefeld () is a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 341,755, it is also the most populous city in the administrative region (''Regierungsbezirk'') of Detmold and the ...

. The demonstration was formed of approximately 250 people. It has been organized by 9 different organizations, e.g.

Chaos Computer Club The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is Europe's largest association of hackers with 7,700 registered members. Founded in 1981, the association is incorporated as an ''eingetragener Verein'' in Germany, with local chapters (called ''Erfa-Kreise'') in ...

, Deutsche Vereinigung für Datenschutz (German association for data Privacy), Forum InformatikerInnen für Frieden und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung (forum of computer scientists for peace and social responsibility), FoeBuD (now

digitalcourage Digitalcourage – known until November 2012 as FoeBuD (''Verein zur Förderung des öffentlichen bewegten und unbewegten Datenverkehrs'') – is a German privacy and digital rights organisation. Under the motif of preserving "a world worth livi ...

), Humanistische Union, Netzwerk Neue Medien (network new media) and Stop1984 Some months ago the Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung appealed for a demonstration named ''Freiheit statt Sicherheitswahn'' ('Freedom not security delusion') which was also followed by about 250 people.

2007

On 14 April 2007 a demonstration named ''Freiheit statt Angst'' happened to be in

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

, being attended by at least 1000 people. On 22 September 2007 about 15,000 people attended to the bigger demonstration in Berlin. According to the data protection commissioner of

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sch ...

, Thilo Weichert those where the largest protests for data protection in the past 20 years. Fifty organisations appealed for the demonstration. Amongst others the Hedonist International and Freie Ärzteschaft (free doctors association) attended with their own trucks.

2018

On Saturday, October 13, 2018 there were protests in the streets of

for the data security of German citizens. The protesters' demands included: # Stopping monitoring # Stop data retention # No State Hacking - Stop State Trojans # Protect the presumption of innocence and the rule of law

References

External links

* Protests in Germany Protests against mass surveillance Events in Berlin {{activism-stub