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Follow us on twitterPirate Party Germany server raid - Personal statement by Loz Kaye
21st May 2011 12:42 | by Loz Kaye
I would like to add my condemnation to that of Sebastian Nerz and Rick Falkvinge, amongst others on yesterday's police raid of German Pirate Party IT Assets.
A French investigation into an attack on the IT infrastructure of the energy group EDF resulted in German authorities disconnecting and then confiscating the German Pirate Party's servers. This had the effect of partially crippling the party two days ahead of state elections in Bremen.
The party itself was not the target of the raid and is instead an innocent victim of these actions by the German Authorities.
"[T]he investigations are not directed against the Pirate Party, the scope and damage is enormous. Two days before state elections in Bremen, our homepage and much of our communication infrastructure [has been] paralysed," — Sebastian Nerz (Leader of the German Pirate Party).
I note also that the action was aimed at PiratenPad, an online tool that Pirate Party UK also uses for preparing documents and press releases. This raid had the potential to disrupt our communications, and therefore hinder the work of a UK party registered with the Electoral Commission.
I am in full agreement with Rick Falkvinge, the former head the Swedish Pirate Party in his suggestion that "Doing this to a democratic party — Germany’s sixth largest, actually — two days before an election is nothing short of a democratic sabotage".
I would congratulate the German Pirate Party for having acted swiftly to re-establish their online presence, and am thankful that voters will again have access to information about the party before the vote the state election on Sunday in Bremen. The power to 'remove' a website from the Internet however temporarily, especially that of a Political party is one that should not be used except in the most extraordinary circumstances.
Loz Kaye
Leader Pirate Party UK
2 comments
As a fact: a "may be" rogatory - not officially sent to the German authorities led to a search and seizure decision. This in itself is as we all know "unlawful". A German judge did sign this piece of paper without an existing legal fundament. The rogatory itself did aim against our German providers.
The Pirate Party of Germany does see a severe violation of its Basic Law (Article 21) in the shutdown of their main medium - as it states out that a political party in Germany does have distinguished rights.
Best regards
Thomas Gaul
Reading with google translate it appears they were simply on a fairly cheap physically hosted setup, likely a shared LAMPed / cPaneled box or similar. Our VPC setup better insulates us against such liability colocated organisations have.