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Comment by philipwhiuk | Hacker News Reader

I'm not really sure I buy the alarm on restricting FoI requests to German citizens and EU citizens in Germany.

Should a random US citizen be able to ask a random Germany government official for data? Why?

It's not just foreign nationals that would be barred from issuing requests but non-profit organizations as well. Also, the cap on fees would be eliminated, further increasing the barriers for people wanting to issue requests.

Is there any material difference between a non-profit asking and people who work for the non-profit asking? Is the maker of the request made public or something?

It sounds like the organizations thing might just be to stop foreign nationals using that as a workaround.

Forcing you to publicly attach your name to something is often a form of intimidation.

I'm unsure if non-profit funds can be used in that way for a (technically) private inquiry.

The problem is not to restrict it to German citizens, but removing it for everything which is not a citizen, like civil rights organizations, environment organizations, and everyone else who has a legit interest to check on the governments work.

Civil rights organisations are staffed by citizens. What is the problem here?

The plans also include that you have to have some relevant personal relation with the data. This will make it unlikely that an NGO can just request any random data under their staffs name. Additionally, requests should also mirror the real costs, which could go into the thousands or even ten of thousands. This makes it harder to find legit people which are willing to take the risks, even if the NGO could cover the costs.

Of course it's also all just speculation without any real laws written yet, but the direction is there.

What is the rationale to restrict it to citizens? Do you prefer a more open or more closed society?

Define society. Is some dude in the USA, or UK part of the German society?

Can some dude in the USA or UK go to Germany?

Yeah, and?

The US and UK let anyone in the world file a request, regardless of citizenship.

Countries that don’t usually rationalize: government is answerable primary to those it governs and taxes, limit flood of requests, some laws only extend rights to citizens of countries that offer similar rights back, worry that other governments could use it as low cost intelligence gathering, harder to charge or pursue fees.

Don't they have courts for those things? If they are receiving a flood of unreasonable requests I'm sure they could ask a judge if they really have to do them.

How about the us citizen who is a permanent resident in Germany? German family? Business partners?

This is a minor point. It gives the government broad power to reject any request, associations and media outlets are excluded, it costs more and the mandatory REDACTION OF NAMES is undercutting accountability completely.

Yea, I don't give a shit wether only citizen should be able to request data.

The politicians' names are mandatorily redacted, but the requestor's name is mandatorily not redacted. Very convenient, really.

It excludes organisations and increases fees. So, if say Amnesty or Greenpeace (two NGOs opposing this act) want to FoI something, they have to get a German citizen to do it for them, possibly at considerable expense - and you bet if they try to compensate them, it'll be "foreign interference" and an excuse for suppression.

Like GDPR, the existence of FoI laws give government agencies a reason to develop systems to quickly and effortlessly give people the access they're entitled to. Given the existence of such systems (analogous to the "data takeout" systems businesses must have for PII), giving access to foreigners as well should be unproblematic. It's supposed to be public information in the first place, roadblocks have no place.

> It excludes organisations and increases fees. So, if say Amnesty or Greenpeace (two NGOs opposing this act) want to FoI something, they have to get a German citizen to do it for them,

If Amnesty aren't interested in setting up a German chapter maybe they shouldn't get involved in German affairs?

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