German Member of Parliament Joins Pirate Party

June 20, 2009 · Print This Article

Political Observer writes “Jörg Tauss, a member of the German Parliament (Bundestag), left the Social Democratic Party SPD, which is part of the coalition government, and announced that he is joining the German Pirate Party (Google translation; original German article). Tauss resigned from the SPD after all but four of the party’s members voted for a new censorship law, which passed the parliament on Thursday. The law, which aims at reducing child pornography, introduces

an infrastructure for DNS-based composition blocking and is the subject of major criticism from Web users. In March 2009 Tauss became the subject of investigations by the German police for possession of child pornographic material. He said he had that material only for research as part of his role as a member of parliament. Investigations are still continuing.”