A test for a young democracy: How the RAF challenged the German Rechtsstaat

When Edward Snowden revealed to which extent modern surveillance systems control the world, this provoked a massive outcry among politicians and citizens. The National Security Agency's (NSA) programme, exposed by Snowden, is probably one of the biggest programmes collecting data of foreign and domestic citizens in the world. However, as terrorism has already existed before the 21st century, also counter-terrorist measures have a long tradition. The method of collecting data by using computerized systems has its beginnings in the second half of the 20th century. This new "computational security" is widely regarded as the beginning of "new surveillance" One of the countries which first made use of new surveillance methods was West-Germany, having to deal with left-wing extremism in the 1970s and 80s. It is, therefore, of particular interest to investigate to what extent Germany could cope with the new challenges and keep its democratic legitimacy as a Rechtsstaat, in particular in view of its fragility as a young and politically divided democracy. The Rechtsstaat is here defined as "a state in which the rule of law prevails". This paper examines to what extent the new surveillance and security methods, introduced by the German government against the RAF, led to a transformation of the understanding of the Rechtsstaat. To elaborate on this question, the first part touches upon the evolvement of the RAF. Furthermore, it introduces the criminologist Horst Herold, the main "hunter" of the RAF in more detail, and the creation of dragnet investigation. The second part outlines the concept of new surveillance using literature by Gary Marx and David Lyon, and examines to what extent "new surveillance" theory can be linked to the events in Germany. The third part explores the workings of the legislative and executive powers of the time by illustrating how they were threatening to undermine the Rechtsstaat in the attempt to establish security. The paper concludes by arguing that to counter the radical left-wing movement of the 1970s and the RAF, the German government implemented a number of policies and new processes, which challenged some of the basic principles of the Rechtsstaat, and thereby jeopardized the political and judicial foundations of this young democracy

Probing Galaxy Dark Matter Haloes in COSMOS with Weak Lensing Flexion

Current theories of structure formation predict specific density profiles of galaxy dark matter haloes, and with weak gravitational lensing we can probe these profiles on several scales. On small scales, higher-order shape distortions known as flexion add significant detail to the weak lensing measurements. We present here the first detection of a galaxy-galaxy flexion signal in space-based data, obtained using a new Shapelets pipeline introduced here. We combine this higher-order lensing signal with shear to constrain the average density profile of the galaxy lenses in the Hubble Space Telescope COSMOS survey. We also show that light from nearby bright objects can significantly affect flexion measurements. After correcting for the influence of lens light, we show that the inclusion of flexion provides tighter constraints on density profiles than does shear alone. Finally we find an average density profile consistent with an isothermal sphere.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Acknowledgments

From January to June 2015, eleven students from the Bachelor Programmes Arts and Culture and European Studies participated in the course Transparency in Perspective at Maastricht University. This course was organised in the context of the Maastricht University Research Based Learning Project (MaRBLe), and was supervised by Dr. Nico Randeraad. This book includes shortened versions of the original papers of the students who have participated in the course. We would like to thank the organisers of the MaRBLe project, our external advisers, and in particular Dr. Nico Randeraad, for their support throughout the entire research process

Conclusion

Based on the Baconian imperative that "knowledge is power", the drive for transparency gathers up ever-more speed. Especially in politics and economics, transparency has become a widely used catchphrase. Transparency is supposed to alter information asymmetries, improve market efficiency and establish a more inclusive and fair political praxis. While transparency is hoped to alter power relations, and thus to be a revolutionary or at least a reformative tool, surveillance is the privilege of those already in power, and thus regarded as a reactionary tool.        The studies in this joint volume have investigated this dichotomy by looking at various actors in regard to their possibility to change or cement existing power relations, symmetries, improve market efficiency, and establish a more inclusive and fair political praxis. While transparency is hoped to alter power relations, and thus to be a revolutionary or at least a reformative tool, surveillance is the privilege of those already in power. Each contribution, in its unique way, took a skeptical stance towards potential power shifts induced through societal or behavioral changes. This book examined a multitude of societal actors and the power relations between them. Although all contributions highlighted very different subject matters, some common themes emerged. These common themes ought to be highlighted in this final section. Moreover, this final chapter allows us to briefly summarise the central themes and most important finding of each article.        The first contribution treats surveillance and transparency as two sides of the same coin in the sense that both are attempts at changing behaviour by increasing the visibility of actors. Zeijl examines several attempts at transparency from a wide variety of actors. He argues that transparency, as it is currently put in practice by governments and companies, is more lip service than real concern with accountability and openness. Zeijl claims that these attempts at transparency are influenced by the logic of surveillance and therefore consolidate already existing power relations. While there are alternative ways of constructing transparency, they all have possible adverse effects that cannot and should not be easily cast aside. Therefore, one needs to critically assess what the exact benefits of transparency are in order to reach a balanced judgement on whether these possible adverse effects are worth the risk. Since transparency is more often invoked than defined, it is absolutely crucial to pay attention to the structure that transparency is supposed to assume, its organisation, its agents, and its potential impacts. Otherwise, transparency becomes a metaphysical catchphrase to graze (political) support rather than a real concern for accountability and openness

Introduction

"Scientia potentia est" – knowledge is power. Many people seem to read this phrase, attributed to Francis Bacon, as a mission statement. If knowledge is power, then it is easy to understand why people demand more transparency and why at the same time surveillance increases. Transparency and surveillance are means to acquire knowledge and information. For centuries, governments have been surveilling their people to ensure that they behave according to their wishes