berlinpolis
berlinpolis e. V. was a formally politically independent lobbyist group with 10 employees who, according to their own account, wanted to shape “politics for tomorrow”. It was co-founded in 2000 by the political scientist Daniel Dettling (son of Warnfried Dettling ). Members included political scientists, lawyers, journalists and the self-employed. The last board member includes Dettling and Esther Klein. On the advisory board sat u. a. Rita Süssmuth , Horst Teltschik , Matthias Horx , Wolfgang Huber and Marianne Birthler . In May 2010, Berlinpolis was dissolved. In the meantime, Dettling re: publik - Institute for Future Policy as a similar company, which is not a legal successor, however.
General activities and funding
The organization planned and organized conferences, published theses, was editor of the magazine think tank (dt., Think tank ') and advised corporations. The main focus was on the knowledge society , education and economic and social policy. The association did not receive any public funds and was financed through membership fees and project funds, the sources of which were not published.
Controversial position on data protection
At the beginning of 2006, the association got into public discussion through a comment from its founder Daniel Dettling, which appeared in the Süddeutsche Zeitung . It demanded Dettling, as part of the fight against terrorism all user activity to monitor the Internet to detect such potential terrorists. This is absolutely necessary because the Internet functions as a “remote university of violence”.
In the course of this, Dettling called for a "web analysis": "Almost any data that is accessible on the Internet could be used for this: frequency of clicks on a website, statistical data such as survey results, voter participation and memberships" . According to Dettling, "cross-connections could then be created, for example between voter participation and unemployment, between delinquency and involvement in various organizations, between the frequency of visits to a website and the development of the organization behind it, between activity in online forums and involvement in real associations" .
Such plans met with sharp criticism in many Internet communities , since, in the opinion of the participants, full surveillance represents a massive invasion of privacy and thus opens up the potential for abuse (e.g. circumvention of data protection ).
Secret lobbying
In May 2009, the anti-lobby initiative Lobbycontrol uncovered that Berlinpolis, on behalf of the lobby agency " European Public Policy Advisers GmbH " (EPPA) for Deutsche Bahn AG, during the dispute over privatization and the collective bargaining dispute between the Bahn and the union of German locomotive drivers (GDL) carried out massive, covert campaigns of deception (see: PR affair of Deutsche Bahn ).
In July 2009, Lobbycontrol discovered that the Association of the German Biofuel Industry e. V. had a campaign carried out over a period of several months in 2008, which was intended to improve public opinion on the subject of biofuels (see: Bio-fuel affair ).
Individual evidence
- ^ Taz: Lobbyism is part of democracy , November 2, 2010
- ↑ Friday: Advertisement in a think tank case , August 17, 2010
- ^ German think tank demands control of the Internet , heise.de, March 29, 2006.
- ↑ Lobby control: Short study: The hidden influence of Deutsche Bahn for the privatization of the railways and against the GDL strike: (PDF file; 357 kB)
- ↑ Lobby control: Again undercover opinion-making - today: Biofuel , July 10, 2009
- ↑ https://www.heise.de/tp/news/Greenwashing-fuer-Biosprit-aufgedeckt-2032551.html