A group of hackers and a human rights organization have sued the German government for conducting illegal espionage activities and aiding the National Security Agency (NSA) and its British counterpart (GCHQ).
The Chaos Computer Club (CCC), one of the world’s largest hacker , and the International League for Human Rights (ILHR) filed a lawsuit with the German federal prosecutor’s office on Monday. The groups accuse the German government, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, of “illegal and prohibited secret intelligence activities, complicity and aiding and abetting these activities, violation of the right to privacy and obstruction of justice” by collaborating with the NSA and GCHQ to spy on German citizens, according to a CCC press release.
“After thousands of press releases about mass surveillance by the secret services and offensive attacks on information technology systems,” the group wrote in the statement, “we now have the certainty that the secret services of Germany and other countries have violated German criminal law.”.
