Deutsche Telekom surveillance affair

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The surveillance affair of Deutsche Telekom AG (based on the Watergate affair also Telekomgate ) includes surveillance of supervisory boards, a member of the Telekom board of directors, members and employees of works councils as well as union officials and journalists.

The Bonn public prosecutor's office investigated eight suspects, including former executives and members of the supervisory board of Deutsche Telekom AG, on suspicion of violating postal and telecommunications secrecy and the Federal Data Protection Act . Approaches to the affair became known to the wider public from the end of May 2008 through an article in Spiegel . There were around 60 victims of the surveillance, including Ver.di boss Bsirske . According to the then Telekom CEO Kai-Uwe Ricke , the aim of the monitoring was to identify leaks in the group that were responsible for the repeated disclosure of confidential information.

background

After Deutsche Telekom had been financially troubled since 1999, its then board of directors under Kai-Uwe Ricke was planning extensive layoffs, which were initially only discussed in confidence in the board of directors and the supervisory board . At the same time there were massive conflicts between different board members, especially between the fixed network division responsible Walter Raizner , for the mobile division responsible René Obermann and for the business customer division responsible Lothar Pauly .

Such and other confidential information was published, for example, by the Capital magazine , the Financial Times Deutschland business newspaper , the Wirtschaftswoche business newspaper and the news magazine Der Spiegel . According to Ricke, Telekom had "holes like Swiss cheese".

As a result, the management board, chaired by Ricke, and the supervisory board, chaired by Klaus Zumwinkel, ordered investigations to uncover the leak. The investigations that the corporate security department was hired to undertake apparently included both legal and illegal activities. Legal measures included sending memos with false information to individual board members to see if that information would appear in the media. In addition, board documents were given secret codes.

The affair

The illegal investigation methods that the accused are accused of include spying on the supervisory boards of Deutsche Telekom AG and its subsidiary T-Mobile, a member of the Deutsche Telekom board of directors, relatives and employees of works councils , "but also third parties who cannot be assigned to the corporate division" , such as Ver .di officials or journalists. According to a preliminary interim report by the Bonn public prosecutor's office published in early November 2008, at least 55 people were spied on "in 2005 and 2006 according to the information available today" . Investigators suspect that this number will increase. The management consultancy Desa Investigation + Risk Protection , which specializes in the investigation and prevention of business and white-collar crime, was commissioned with the spying indirectly through the company Control Risks Deutschland GmbH . It was reported in the press that some victims were being filmed undercover. After 2005, hundreds of thousands of connection data were illegally obtained and evaluated by Network Deutschland (Berlin) to find out which Telekom employees had spoken to which journalists.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on May 30, 2008 that the spying by Telekom should have gone much further than previously known. Not only telephone connections but also bank details are said to have been spied on by journalists and supervisory boards. In addition, movement profiles of individual people are said to have been created using special software via the cellular network .

Possible perpetrators

The public prosecutor's office had initiated investigations against eight accused, including the former chairman of the supervisory board Klaus Zumwinkel and the former chairman of the board of directors Kai-Uwe Ricke. Ricke rejected the allegations: "I have never placed illegal orders and certainly not at any time ordered that phone connection data be spied on."

According to a report by the Financial Times Deutschland and Der Spiegel , the then head of the investigative department of the corporate security "KS 3" Klaus Trzeschan said at an internal hearing that he had been given the intelligence agency by Ricke and Zumwinkel. This statement coincides with statements made by the then HR director Heinz Klinkhammer , who had also indirectly accused Ricke and Zumwinkel. Public prosecutor's investigations are ongoing against both of them. The main defendant Trzeschan assumed sole responsibility for the illegal spying in the process.

It is unclear when the spying began. According to the Financial Times Deutschland, it should have started in 2000 under Telekom boss Ron Sommer . Ron Sommer denied knowing about the spying on journalists.

Exposure of the affair

The reason for the affair becoming known was that the detective agency Network Deutschland , commissioned by Telekom, under the leadership of Ralf Kühn, was apparently not paid in full and wanted their money of up to 650,000 euros. In a fax sent in April 2008, she threatened Telekom that she would massively disrupt the Telekom general meeting and inform the press that she had illegally reconciled telephone calls between supervisory boards and journalists on behalf of the group. According to "Handelsblatt", Telekom paid Network around EUR 174,000 on May 14, 2008, the day before the annual general meeting.

The affair became known on the weekend of May 24, 2008 through a Spiegel article and a telecom press conference with partial confessions about the surveillance of a larger public.

Response from Deutsche Telekom

René Obermann, CEO of Telekom since 2006, assured that he had no knowledge of the spying. In the summer of 2007, he fired Steininger, the head of security at Telekom, and other employees in the security department. He also informed the Federal Chancellery, the Ministry of Finance and finally the public prosecutor's office, to which Telekom handed over files in May 2008. In May 2008, the public prosecutor's office searched Telekom offices, including Obermann's office.

The Cologne law firm Oppenhoff & Partner was commissioned by Telekom at the beginning of May 2008 to investigate the scandal internally. The ex-Vice President of the Federal Criminal Police Office , Reinhard Rupprecht, and the former chairman of the Federal Court of Justice , Gerhard Schäfer , also investigated the case on behalf of Telekom and developed recommendations for improving the handling of data.

On February 10, 2010, Telekom published its investigation report.

More reactions

On June 4, 2008, the Interior Committee of the German Bundestag discussed how to deal with the so-called telecommunications spying affair.

According to the CDU member of the Bundestag Steffen Kampeter , the telecommunications spy affair could have shaken the country far more than the Spiegel affair in 1962.

DGB boss and member of the Telekom supervisory board Michael Sommer complained about a breach of basic rights - not only at Telekom. "I have a well-founded suspicion that we are facing an abyss in our country."

In response to the events, the Chaos Computer Club called for “effective protection against data crimes” and made the legislature responsible.

On October 24, 2008, Telekom received the Big Brother Award 2008 for this in the Work Environment and Communication category.

judgment

On November 30, 2010, the Bonn Regional Court sentenced Klaus Trzeschan to a prison sentence of three and a half years for fraud, breach of trust and violation of telecommunications secrecy . The presiding judge, Klaus Reinhoff, indicated that not everyone who was responsible for the affair might have been punished. Ricke "obviously didn't care what methods Trzeschan used to uncover the indiscretion in the group". The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) upheld the ruling in October 2012. Lawyers for the victims of the spying, including the former Federal Minister of the Interior Gerhart Baum , said the case had not been adequately clarified.

The former Telekom CEO Kai-Uwe Ricke and Klaus Zumwinkel agreed with Telekom on compensation payments of 600,000 euros each, after Telekom had demanded 1,000,000 euros each. Of the settlement sum, Ricke and Zumwinkel had to pay 250,000 euros out of their own pockets, the greater part was paid for by liability insurance for managers.

Web links

 Wikinews: Raid on the German telecom headquarters - investigation initiated  - message

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Leyendecker: The power of money. Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 27, 2008, accessed on November 29, 2008 : "Any outrage about" Telekomgate "is justified."
  2. ↑ Investigations against Ricke and Zumwinkel. In: Focus. May 29, 2008. Retrieved November 29, 2008 .
  3. ↑ Ulrich Schäfer: "Clipper" secret operation - Obermanns examination. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. May 25, 2008. Retrieved November 29, 2008 .
  4. ^ Report Mainz: New serious allegations in the telecommunications spying affair. January 19, 2009.
  5. ↑ Caspar Dohmen : Ricke was looking for leaks. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. May 28, 2008. Retrieved November 29, 2008 .
  6. ^ Thomas Hillenbrand: Telekom and the press - breakdowns, panic, paranoia. In: Der Spiegel. May 29, 2008, accessed on November 29, 2008 : "Delusion of persecution in Bonn: In 2005 and 2006 Telekom internals were constantly reaching the press"
  7. ↑ Johannes Winkelhage: A Swiss cheese from Bonn. (No longer available online.) In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. May 26, 2008, formerly in the original ; Retrieved November 29, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.faz.net  
  8. ^ Spiegel Online May 29, 2008
  9. ↑ faz.net November 13, 2008: Telekom affair. According to Ver.di, Bsirske was also spied on.
  10. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung November 13, 2008: Spy scandal spreads.
  11. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung November 13, 2008: Ver.di boss Bsirske spied on.
  12. ^ Spiegel-Online November 15, 2008: Spying affair. Bsirske accuses Telekom of Stasi methods.
  13. ↑ Der Spiegel No. 47/17. November 2008, p. 122 ff .: "The men from KS 3"
  14. ↑ a b Rhein-Zeitung May 30, 2008
  15. ↑ tagesschau.de June 1, 2008 ( Memento from September 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  16. ↑ tagesschau.de June 1, 2008 ( Memento from October 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ^ Frank Dohmen: Espionage scandal: ex-Telekom informers arrested. In: Spiegel Online . December 17, 2008, accessed June 9, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Financial Times Deutschland May 31, 2008 ( Memento from June 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ↑ faz.net June 2, 2008: Zumwinkel and Ricke are said to have issued informal orders
  20. ↑ dpa: Telecom affair is taking on ever larger dimensions ( Memento of the original from April 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / newsticker.welt.de
  21. ↑ Handelsblatt June 1, 2008 ( Memento from June 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  22. ↑ Press release from Telekom AG, May 24, 2008 ( Memento from May 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  23. ^ Spiegel Online May 29, 2008
  24. ↑ tagesschau.de June 1, 2008 ( memento from September 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) tagesschau.de June 1, 2008
  25. ^ Spiegel Online May 29, 2008
  26. ↑ Deutsche Telekom analyzes previous corporate security activities ( memento of July 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) telekom.com, April 20, 2012.
  27. ^ German Bundestag: Telekom affair discussed with the Federal Data Protection Commissioner ( Memento from June 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  28. ↑ tagesschau.de June 1, 2008 ( Memento from October 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  29. ↑ tagesschau.de June 1, 2008 ( Memento from October 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  30. ^ CCC
  31. ^ Fredrik Roggan: Working world and communication: Deutsche Telekom AG . BigBrotherAwards. October 24, 2008. Retrieved April 13, 2009.
  32. ^ Spiegel Online: Spy affair: Telekom employees must be imprisoned for three and a half years , November 30, 2010
  33. ↑ Financial Times Deutschland: April 1, 2011: Telecom affair ends lightly for Ricke and Zumwinkel ( memento of July 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), April 1, 2011