According to a report in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper published Wednesday, there were 5,348 police telephone surveillance operations in Germany in 2008, compared to 4,806 in 2007. In total, the police carried out 16,463 surveillance operations last year. The biggest increase took place in Bavaria, which registered a 30 percent rise.

Malte Spitz, of the Green party leadership council called the new figures alarming, and said they confirmed the Greens' criticism of wiretapping. "Surveillance is being used more and more as the first stage of an operation or as an instrument for keeping tabs on people, when its use should be limited, and only for serious crimes," he told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

Flawed police procedure code

The German code of criminal procedure only allows wiretapping of telephone calls for investigating serious crimes such as murder and pedophilic abuse. But it is also allowed for pursuing drug dealers, and the statistics show that a 50 percent increase in this area is mainly responsible for the sharp increase in the overall figures.

Spitz says there is a need for urgent reform in telephone surveillance policy: "There need to be clear criteria for how and when wire-tapping is to be used."

His demand is supported by the federal commissioner for data protection Peter Schaar, who spoke of "serious problems" with the data protection rights in the current criminal procedure in his latest annual report.

Saved phone data also used

The new Justice Office statistics also show that police are making much use of their new access to saved telecommunications data. Since Jan. 1 2008, German telecommunications providers must save all data, including the locations of mobile phone calls, for six months. The police used this data in 8,316 cases in 2008. The Green party has condemned these new powers as "an intensive assault on our fundamental rights."

The new statistics only cover wire-tapping in the case of definite suspicion of crime, and do not include so-called "preventative" surveillance or the work of the German secret service, which is not within the jurisdiction of the Federal Justice Office.

bk/AP/dpa
Editor: Trinity Hartman