German Prosecutors Think It’s Funny People’s Homes Are Being Raided And Their Devices Seized Because They Said Stuff On The Internet

Germany's history informs its current laws. That much is undeniable. But it doesn't excuse the over-correction applied by legislators in hopes of heading off another Hitler.

And it certainly doesn't excuse prosecutors who are prosecuting hate speech" in Germany. The country's hate speech law has been problematic since its inception. Within days of its debut in 2018, it was causing collateral damage by treating satire as illegal speech and generating a whole lot of false positives.

Still, prosecutors seemed to like it. So did the cops on the hate speech beat. Perhaps a bit too much.

Authorities in Lower Saxony raid homes up to multiple times per month, sometimes with a local television crew in tow.

Thanks to CBS's 60 Minutes, TV crews are back in tow while homes are raided by cops over things people say online. Devices are seized and people are arrested. And the prosecutors see nothing wrong with this sort of armed reaction to certain speech - speech that may not be actually hateful" but merely insulting.

The interview with German prosecutors is perhaps far more enlightening than the participants expected it to be.

First, it makes it clear that the law criminalizes things most people don't actually believe are criminal acts, which is a pretty good indication the German government is using a shotgun to handle a housefly problem.

It's 6:01 on a Tuesday morning, and we were with state police as they raided this apartment in northwest Germany. Inside, six armed officers searched a suspect's home, then seized his laptop and cellphone. Prosecutors say those electronics may have been used to commit a crime. The crime? Posting a racist cartoon online. At the exact same time, across Germany, more than 50 similar raids played out. Part of what prosecutors say is a coordinated effort to curb online hate speech in Germany.

Sharyn Alfonsi [CBS]: What's the typical reaction when the police show up at somebody's door and they say, Hey, we believe you wrote this on the internet,"?

Dr. Matthaus Fink [prosecutor]: They say- in Germany we say, Das wird man ja wohl noch sagen durfen." So we are here with crimes of talking, posting on internet, and the people are surprised that this is really illegal to post these kind of words.

That's a problem. While it's true ignorance of the law is rarely a great excuse, it's quite another thing to see the same behavior repeated when cops show up to beat on doors, seize devices, and arrest citizens because they went a bit too far online. This isn't law enforcement addressing potential threats to public safety. It's armed officers raiding houses because someone might have done something as seemingly harmless as referring to a disliked politician as a penis."

That isn't a hypothetical. It's something that has already actually happened.

[A] 2021 case involving a local politician named Andy Grote [...] captured the country's attention. Grote complained about a tweet, that called him a pimmel," a German word for the male anatomy. That triggered a police raid and accusations of excessive censorship by the government. As prosecutors explained to us, in Germany, it's OK to debate politics online. But it can be a crime to call anyone a pimmel," even a politician.

While it's true that relying on personal insults is rarely an effective form of debate, it's insane to firmly believe that this constitutes a criminal act that should involve armed officers, government prosecutors, and - because this was handled by the Lower Saxony office - a TV crew.

Frank-Michael Laue is the prosecutor heading up the Lower Saxony office. And he's super-enthused about raiding homes and seizing devices belonging to people who say mean stuff on social media. And it's this enthusiasm that really exposes how much of a boondoggle this law is.

Sharyn Alfonsi: How many cases are you working on at any time?

Frank-Michael Laue: In our unit, we have about 3,500 cases per year.

Wow. That's like 10 cases a day. Seems like the law isn't much of a deterrent if prosecutors are able to generate 3,500 cases per year.

That's where Laue really steps in it, apparently inadvertently.

Laue says his unit has successfully prosecuted about 750 hate speech cases over the last four years.

Someone should do the math because Lower Saxony prosecutors apparently aren't: 14,000 cases managed to deliver 750 successful prosecutions. That's a hit rate of 5.35%. Does that seem to be a good use of law enforcement resources? On top of the cops handling the raids, there are the expenses generated by Lower Saxony prosecutors, who have nearly a 95% failure rate when it comes to prosecuting people engaged in so-called hate speech.

Perhaps the worst thing about the interview with German prosecutors is that they don't seem to care that this is mostly a waste of time and money. They seem to view this constant futility as (1) essential to protecting Germany from its own citizens, and (2) pretty fucking funny when keyboard warriors get their shit jumped by police officers.

At about 4:10 into the interview, this happens:

Sharyn Alfonsi: How do people react when you take their phones from them?

Frank-Michael Laue: They are shocked. It's a kind of punishment if you lose your-smartphone. It's even worse than the fine you have to pay.

What's not detailed in this transcript is the laughter of Laue and the other prosecutors (Matthaus Fink, Svenja Meininghaus), who seem to think it's incredibly amusing that people who are already baffled they're being accosted by law enforcement over a social media post are shocked" to see their electronics seized by officers. That's a hideous reaction that makes it clear - as we say so often here in the States - the cruelty is the point. It certainly can't be anything else, not when Laue and his Lower Saxony prosecutors can barely convert 5% of these raids/seizures into a criminal case that usually ends with nothing more than monetary fine.

I'm sure good intentions played a part in the crafting of this law. And Germany's concerns about steering clear of a Fourth Reich are certainly legitimate. But those enforcing the law just seem happy to be inflicting misery on German citizens who've done nothing more than insult politicians or expose their racism and bigotry to others. Maybe this is will keep the Nazis at bay, but it also suggests some German politicians and prosecutors still yearn for the good old days of the Berlin Wall and all the suppression of speech that regime enabled.