KARLSRUHE, Germany, May 23 (UPI) -- Germany's highest court on Tuesday curtailed the police's powers to investigate electronic databases at random in search of possible terrorists.
The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled in favor of a Moroccan man who had protested computer investigations in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The court said such data trawling was only constitutional if authorities had concrete evidence pointing to a threat to Germany.
German police had scanned university databases to look for current and former Muslim students in German after Sept. 11, a practice the court has ruled unconstitutional.
A general threat situation was not sufficient for such extreme measures, rather, "the existence of further facts pointing to a concrete danger, such as the preparation or commission of terrorist attacks" would be necessary, the court said in a statement.
Such measures, the court said, "reinforce prejudices and stigmatize the affected social groups in the perception of the public."
Several countries around the world have tightened anti-terror laws in the wake of Islamist terrorism.
A recent debate erupted in the United States after it surfaced that Washington had checked the telephone records of several million U.S. citizens; critics say Washington has gone too far in sacrificing civil liberties in the name of security since the attacks.
