Clash Over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany

Markus Beckedahl was visiting Detroit when a legal threat arrived in his email inbox from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean: a cease-and-desist letter from lawyers representing FinFisher, a German company that sells surveillance technology that it says helps law enforcement stamp out crime.

Beckedahl, the 42-year-old founder of Netzpolitik, a German website that combines technology news and digital rights advocacy, is one of FinFisher’s loudest critics for, he says, selling spyware to authoritarian governments. In September, his organization, along with several advocacy groups, filed a criminal complaint against the Munich-based surveillance company, alleging that it had supplied its technology to Turkey without obtaining the required license from Germany’s federal government.