Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 17: Jawohl, Herr Minister!

Series index:

  1. The EPO Bundestagate -- Part 1: How the Bundestag Was (and Continues to be) Misled About EPO Affairs
  2. The EPO Bundestagate -- Part 2: Lack of Parliamentary Oversight, Many Questions and Few Answers…
  3. The EPO Bundestagate -- Part 3: A “Minor Interpellation” in the German Bundestag
  4. The EPO Bundestagate -- Part 4: Parroting the GDPR-Compliance Myth
  5. The EPO Bundestagate -- Part 5: The Federal Eagle's Disconcerting Metamorphosis
  6. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 6: Dr Petri Starts the Ball Rolling…
  7. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 7: Ms Voßhoff Alerts the Bundestag…
  8. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 8: The EPO's Tweedledum, Raimund Lutz
  9. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 9: A Veritable Virtuoso of Legal Sophistry
  10. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 10: A Faithful Lapdog Despised and Reviled by EPO Staff
  11. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag — Appendix (Benoît Battistelli's Vichy Syndrome): Georges Henri Léon Battistelli and Charles Robert Battistelli
  12. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 11: The BMJV's Tweedledee: Dr Christoph Ernst
  13. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 12: A Worthy Successor to His Mentor?
  14. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 13: The Failed Promise of a “Good Governance” Guru…
  15. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 14: The Notorious Revolving Door
  16. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 15: Different Strokes for Different Folks
  17. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 16: An Inimitable Duo
  18. You are here ☞ Jawohl, Herr Minister!


Raimund Lutz, Heiko Maas and Christoph Ernst



Summary: A French-German co-production of "Yes, Minister!" starring Raimund Lutz, Heiko Maas and Christoph Ernst. Directed by Benoît Battistelli.

As we have seen, the matter of the EPO's deficient data protection framework was placed on the agenda [PDF] of the Legal Affairs Committee of the Bundestag at its meeting scheduled for 14 October 2015.



"All that remained for Ernst to do was to work the usual EPOnian “copypasta”..."In preparation for this meeting, Christoph Ernst was tasked with drafting the Justice Ministry's submission to the Legal Affairs Committee.

As explained in the last part, Ernst was assisted in this task by his mentor, Raimund Lutz, EPO Vice-President (and former official of the Justice Ministry), who provided his protégé with a carefully formulated statement of the EPO's position.

All that remained for Ernst to do was to work the usual EPOnian "copypasta" magic and serve up the result [PDF] in the form of a Memorandum ("Informationsvermerk") for the Legal Affairs Committee.

Informationsvermerk
Ernst prepared the Justice Ministry's Memorandum for the Legal Affairs Committee of the Bundestag using the usual EPOnian "copypasta" skills.



In his Memorandum to the Legal Affairs Committee, Ernst parroted the old EPOnian myth about the "close alignment" between the EPO's data protection framework and European data protection law.

"In his Memorandum to the Legal Affairs Committee, Ernst parroted the old EPOnian myth about the "close alignment" between the EPO's data protection framework and European data protection law."The Committee was informed about the EPO's "relatively high standard of data protection compared to other international organizations" – as if that could be considered a source of comfort!

Ernst also took pains to point out that the establishment of independent external supervision, for example by the European Data Protection Supervisor, would impinge on "the institutional foundations of the EPO" and would require an amendment to the European Patent Convention.

This would in turn necessitate a diplomatic conference of the contracting states which meant that the change desired by the BfDl "could not be implemented easily or quickly".

When it came to the controversial issue of covert surveillance, Ernst carefully followed the cues provided by Lutz and informed the Committee that "according to the internal law of the EPO, the computer surveillance was lawful and proportionate and did not violate the rights of the person concerned".

In any case - so the Committee was told - there was no need for concern because anybody who considered that their rights had been violated would have adequate access to "legal protection" via the EPO's data protection officer – aptly described by Florian Müller of FOSS Patents as a "dictator's minion" - and via the organisation's notoriously dysfunctional internal appeal procedures.

Based on these considerations, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Bundestag was informed of the BMJV's opinion that "a regulatory gap is not considered to exist".

"When it came to the controversial issue of covert surveillance, Ernst carefully followed the cues provided by Lutz..."Finally, Ernst assured the Committee that "the Justice Ministry will continue - both within and outside the Administrative Council - to ensure compliance with high data protection standards".

For good measure, the Memorandum concludes with another generous serving of humbug about the "Current social situation at the EPO".

Ernst explained here that "[t]he BMJV is actively working to improve the situation at the EPO and has been instrumental in initiating a renewal of the social dialogue in the Administrative Council, which is to take the form of a trialogue between the EPO President, the staff unions and representatives of the Administrative Council" and he emphasised that "the BMJV conducts many background discussions with all sides and is continuously striving for a fresh start".

All of this neatly skirts around the elephant in the room, namely that the underlying cause of the social conflict at the EPO was the failure of the Administrative Council - under Ernst's stewardship - to enforce its authority over the rogue Office President, the latter-day Corsican despot Battistelli.

It seems that Ernst's "copypasta" Memorandum was enough to persuade the honourable members of the Legal Affairs Committee that everything was fine and dandy in the fairytale land of EPOnia and that there was no need for further action on their part.

The members of the Committee were also told in no uncertain terms that - even if they were inclined to pursue the matter further - the change desired by the BfDl would require a diplomatic conference and for this reason "could not be implemented easily or quickly".

And so it was that - with the aid and assistance of the head of the EPO's Directorate of Legal and International Affairs - Christoph Ernst managed to head Ms Voßhoff and her posse off at the pass, thereby averting the "doomsday scenario" of a public exposure of the deficiencies in the organisation's data protection framework.

"All of this neatly skirts around the elephant in the room, namely that the underlying cause of the social conflict at the EPO was the failure of the Administrative Council - under Ernst's stewardship - to enforce its authority over the rogue Office President, the latter-day Corsican despot Battistelli."To the great relief of Team Battistelli the impending threat of external "interference" in the affairs of the autonomous fiefdom of EPOnia had been successfully neutralised and the spectre of a diplomatic conference was banished for the foreseeable future.

Of course no other outcome could have realistically been expected, given that the German Justice Minister at the time in question was Heiko Maas.

In the next part we shall take a closer look at Justice Minister Maas and his relationship with the EPO during the Battistelli era.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete