How to Become a Traitor by Telling the Truth

The German federal prosecutor opened a treason investigation against journalists at Netzpolitik after the blog published internal documents from the domestic intelligence agency revealing plans to massively expand online surveillance—monitoring citizens across social media platforms on a significant budget. Zeit Online, Spiegel Online, and Süddeutsche Zeitung all confirmed the proceedings. It was the first time since the 1960s that German journalists had been formally accused of treason.

If Verfassungsschutz chief Maaßen and federal prosecutor Range get their way, Markus and I will be sitting in prison for two years, wrote Andre Meister on the blog. We were officially informed today of the investigation against us and persons unknown. The charge: treason.

Sit with that for a moment. Two journalists exposed the fact that Germany’s domestic intelligence service wanted to spend significant public money monitoring its own citizens on Facebook and Twitter. For doing that, they were being investigated as traitors—not the officials who authorized the surveillance, not the people who hid it from the public, but the people who told us it was happening.

This is what the legal apparatus looks like when it’s pointed at the press. Not a blunt instrument—a precise one, calibrated to intimidate. Even after the charges were dropped under sustained public pressure, the message had already landed: report on us and we will make your life expensive and frightening. Andre Meister called it an attack on press freedom. He was right. And people like him and Markus Beckedahl, who keep publishing despite knowing exactly what it costs, are the reason we know anything at all about what’s being done in our name.