Overwhelming participation at Demonstration against Germany's new surveillance laws

On Saturday, I attended the Freiheit statt Angst demonstration in Berlin, which aimed at protesting against the various new laws and regulations increasing the surveillance of the German government on its citizens. I assumed it would be again one of those niche events like the demonstrations against software patents, with some 200 people. To the contrary! The organizers counted 15,000 demonstrators, and even the police's initial estimate at the beginning of the demonstration was 8,000.

This really is a big step forward. Apparently it's not only the "generation Internet" that is sick of the ever increasing cut down on civil liberties, data protection and privacy. That being said, 15,000 is still a too small number for a topic that effects everyone in this country. But even a demonstration of that size doesn't happen every day in Berlin, so it's not that easy to completely ignore either...

Don't miss the photos of the demonstration