CCC makes proposals for government program

Even seasoned Union politicians complain that Germany is way behind the industrialized nations when it comes to digitization. Only little is done. The CCC now wants to change that.

Alongside climate change and the energy transition, digitization is one of the buzzwords in the exploratory talks currently underway about a new government for Germany. In addition to the FDP, which has to be more or less genetic for it, all of a sudden politicians from the Union and the SPD are showing themselves to be very eager and assert that courageous steps should finally be taken here.

Parties that have not digitized for 16 years are faced with the formation of a government again – with the exception of the Greens

The no longer very young listener of such phrases asks himself who has actually ruled for the last 16 years? There you can find the Union, the SPD and even the FDP – just over four years, but at least. Exactly they are now complaining that too little happened in terms of digitization in Germany during the Merkel era – and now they want to do better.

Let’s hold on – you’re right, of course. Anyone who has ever enjoyed the best download rates in a remote beach pavilion in Holland knows what the status of mobile network expansion alone is like in Germany – terrible. But why should we believe that precisely those parties that have not achieved anything in terms of digitization in the last 16 years will now do it better in a new government.

Apparently, the activists of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) do not assume either. That is why they have taken the trouble to name all the construction sites of German digitization and with a catalog of measures to deposit. The parties are welcome to use it for their upcoming government program. Then at least they don’t forget anything and the formulations have their say.

The CCC’s proposals are categorized into the areas of infrastructure, education, administration, copyrights and patents, surveillance, IT security, sustainability, foreign policy, tracking and human rights. The formulations include concrete projects, but also basic recommendations such as the ban on the killing of people by autonomous systems. This means that even the party least interested in concrete action can still find a text module that they can write down and approve painlessly and purely in a declaratory manner.

In the concrete recommendations, we do not find anything that digitally-savvy people have not already addressed in the past 16 years – only politics never really wanted to play along. For example, the CCC is in favor of a right to repair, as it already exists in other countries, including European countries. The computer activists also propose a ban on software such as the state trojan, or a ban on the use of budget funds to purchase such a spying device.

An essential point is the openness of the source of software that is to be used in the public environment. Manufacturers should also be obliged to release software as open source for devices that they no longer want to maintain themselves. There should also be more open source in copyright and patents, with the CCC proposing to ban the patenting of DNA sequences entirely. How is that? Yes, it is even possible to yourself Viruses and bacteria to be patented.

In addition, the CCC proposes to finally build up your own IT competence across all government levels, rather than repeatedly buying in projects with questionable benefits and at high costs from outside, see lastly the digital driver’s license. To this end, digital education must also be strengthened and become part of general education right down to schools and up to jurisprudence.

Anyone reading the “government program” of the CCC may wish that the CCC were one of the parties involved in the exploratory talks. Unfortunately, that remains only a wish.