It is surprising to many that as one of the leading member states of the European Union, Germany has not yet passed a federal FOI law. Others, however, especially Germans themselves, would not be surprised at all. They have bitter memories of uncontrolled government intrusion into the private lives of citizens. The former East German secret police, the so-called Stasi, kept dossiers on almost 4 million East Germans — 25% of the entire population. To accomplish this, they engaged 89,000 full time spies and 173,000 informers.

Germany does have in place various laws that permit individuals to inspect government files that contain personal data about themselves. But until 1998, Germany had no freedom of information legislation, which alone permits any interested citizen to inspect records concerning his government’s activities and thus shed light on potential areas of corruption. After their experience with the dictatorial East German regime, some of the new eastern German states had adopted freedom of information measures in their constitutions. But these rights generated no practical use for citizens as their wording was vague and did not define any means to enforce freedom of information rights, nor did any law exist that laid out an enforcement mechanism.

The first of Germany’s 16 states to pass an actual Freedom of Information Act was Brandenburg in 1998. By 2002, similar laws had been adopted in the neighbouring city-state, Berlin, the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein and Germany’s most populous state, Northrhine-Westphalia.

Without a federal law, however, citizens have access only to files maintained by the state government, not the federal government. There is of course no access at all to local government information for those living in states with no FOIA. Thus, federal and state legislation is absolutely necessary for the entire German nation.

As justification, consider the following: In 1998, the Bavarian Data Protection Commissioner alerted the public that the state criminal police force’s computers contained records on no less than 1.3 million inhabitants, including many who were not under suspicion of a crime. That figure is equivalent to 10.8% of the Bavarian population — an astounding halfway toward the levels perpetrated by the Stasi. Yet despite these alarming statistics, Bavaria’s Interior Minister, Guenther Beckstein, in 2001 again opposed a proposal for a freedom of information law.

While the Bavarian government continues to expend extensive efforts assembling secret data banks on the state’s citizens, a study published in 1996 by the criminologist Dr. Dieter Dölling found that government corruption in the field of construction works alone in Germany costs the taxpayer an estimated 5.1 billion euros each year. In addition, a 2001 report by the Munich state prosecutor noted that between 1994 and 2000 no less than 3,924 cases of corruption went to trial in Munich alone. The minister’s policy is, to put it mildly, short sighted. In times of declining trust in government, freedom of information is a tool that a government can use to demonstrate its good faith with the populace, and offers a means to weed out corrupt officials.