by Michael Hollister
Exclusive published at Michael Hollister on July 26, 2026
5.355 words * 28 minutes readingtime
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While five laws make the citizen transparent to the state, a sixth takes away the citizen’s view of the state. The same movement, with the sign reversed – and a distance growing from both sides.
Today, a person in Germany can write to a federal authority and ask: What did you decide, and why? They do not have to say who they are. They do not have to say why they are asking. They do not have to pay a fee that would ruin them. And in the end, the response identifies who made the decision.
Four sentences, four basic assumptions. The federal government wants to remove every one of them.
In the future, the person asking will have to demonstrate a “legitimate interest.” They will have to prove their nationality. They will have to expect fees running into the thousands. And the names of the people who made decisions inside the administration will be redacted. What is a right today – a right that belongs to everyone – will become a privilege for the few who can justify themselves, identify themselves, and buy their way in.
That sounds technical. It is not. It reverses a fundamental relationship.
The Question No One Asks Out Loud
The Freedom of Information Act exists because it rests on a simple idea: In a democracy, the citizen is the principal. Politicians and public authorities are the citizen’s agents. They act in the citizen’s name, with the citizen’s money, and on the citizen’s behalf. And a principal who is not allowed to look over the shoulder of their agents is no longer a principal – they are a supplicant.
The Freedom of Information Act is the sovereign’s only direct tool for looking over that shoulder. Not elections every four years – elections decide only who the agents are, not what they do. Not the press alone – the press reports, but it does not govern. The Freedom of Information Act is the individual person’s legal claim to look into the files of their own state. Without having to give a reason. Without permission. Because those are their files.
In twenty years, this right has brought to light things that otherwise would have remained in filing cabinets – from ministerial calendars and expert reports to the contracts through which the state distributes taxpayers’ money. It was never a comfortable law for those in government. That was precisely its purpose. A control instrument that pleases those being controlled controls nothing.
That claim is now at stake. And it is not at stake in isolation, but within a larger context that becomes visible only when one steps back.
At the same time that the federal government is taking away the citizen’s view of the state, it is expanding the state’s view of the citizen. Chat control permits the scanning of private messages. European vehicle regulations bring cameras into the passenger compartment. Online age verification links identity to every movement. The digital wallet bundles identification, driver’s license, health data, and communication with public authorities into one system. Five layers that make the citizen legible to the state.
And a sixth proposal that reverses the direction of reading: It makes the state illegible to the citizen.
That is the central question of this analysis: What happens to a polity when the observed becomes the observer and the observer becomes blind? When the state learns everything about the citizen, while the citizen learns nothing about the state? The distance between them does not grow from one side alone. It grows from both. One sees more; the other sees less. Put the two together and the result is not reform in any meaningful sense. It is a shift in the balance of power.
What Was Officially Announced
The official coalition committee resolution and the published full text of the reform package provide the formal basis for the following measures.
The possible fee burden was examined in detail by Der Spiegel.
On July 2, 2026, Friedrich Merz, Lars Klingbeil, Bärbel Bas, and Markus Söder appeared before the cameras in the garden of the Chancellery. They presented a package with the dry title “A Program for Growth and Employment” – 34 measures covering taxes, the labor market, pensions, and digitalization. The official coalition committee document placed point 32 under the subheading “Cutting Bureaucracy.” Anyone who read only the headlines missed it.
In its original wording, point 32 sounds harmless, almost caring: The government would further develop the Freedom of Information Act “while safeguarding the right of access to official information and in coordination with the BfDI.” It would make the “complicated Freedom of Information Act easier to understand and more transparent for citizens.” The full coalition package repeats the same formulation. A law that creates transparency is to be made more transparent – the wording is a small masterpiece of concealment. Because what follows has nothing to do with transparency. The planned restrictions were described as a frontal attack on journalism and transparency.
Access rights are to be “focused on natural persons” who have a “legitimate interest in receiving information and cannot obtain it through other regulations.” Two interventions in one sentence. The first: Only natural persons would be allowed to ask; legal persons would no longer be eligible. That would exclude registered associations, foundations, and companies. Deutsche Umwelthilfe, Amnesty International, investigative networks, and organizations submitting requests in their own name would be shut out. The exclusion would not target anonymous constructs, but organized civil society: environmental groups checking emissions limits; editorial offices conducting research as organizations; associations monitoring public procurement. In the future, all of them would have to find a natural person to submit the request for them – who would then, under the identification requirement, stand behind it with their name and identity document. The second intervention: Anyone asking a question would have to demonstrate a “legitimate interest.” Today, no one has to explain why they want to see the files of their state – the right itself is the justification. In the future, the authority would decide whether it accepts the interest stated. The controlled party would decide who is allowed to control it.
It goes further. The government wants to examine restricting the circle of eligible applicants to “Germans and EU citizens living in Germany.” Anyone asking a question would then have to prove their nationality. And it wants to “redact the names of employees” – officially to protect staff “from hostility and threats.” The consequence: It would no longer be possible to determine who had made an official decision. Responsibility would disappear precisely where it had a name.
Another lever would protect everyone else: Authorities would be allowed to refuse information by invoking “complex threat situations.” The Berlin Senate already inserted a similar clause into its state law at the end of March 2026. The term is deliberately broad – in the end, the office refusing the information would decide what constitutes a complex threat situation. The authority would be handed a master key with which almost any uncomfortable request could be rejected.
The most expensive intervention appears not in the resolution itself, but in its consequences. Until now, a cap has limited the fees for a request to €500. That cap is to be abolished, with fees calculated “in accordance with the cost-recovery principle.” Der Spiegel has calculated, using a concrete example, that a single request could cost up to €8,000 in the future. A right that costs €8,000 is no longer a right for most people. It is an offer they cannot afford.
At the Federal Press Conference, government spokesman Stefan Kornelius justified all of this by referring to an “international threat situation,” the protection of critical infrastructure, and the protection of public employees. We will return to these justifications. They do not withstand scrutiny.
The Secret Memorandum
The internal plans were also reported in the context of an effort to push transparency platforms such as FragDenStaat out of the process.
The coalition resolution was the visible part. The invisible part had already been sitting in a drawer at the Federal Ministry of the Interior for five months.
On July 23, 2026, MDR Investigativ reported on an internal memorandum from the office of Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, dated early February 2026. The document shows that the plans go far beyond what the coalition committee made public. It is not a record of a spontaneous idea. It is the elaborated basis for a restructuring that began months before the public announcement.
The memorandum proposes abolishing the task of the Federal Commissioner for Freedom of Information entirely. Specifically, Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act would be removed and the responsible unit at the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information would be dissolved. Section 12 provides that anyone who believes their right of access to information has been violated may contact the Federal Commissioner. The Commissioner also oversees how other federal authorities handle the law. If that office disappears, the citizen is left with only the administrative courts – slow, formal, and expensive. MDR Investigativ reported on the internal memorandum.
This reveals the first documented contradiction within the government’s own position. The coalition paper promises to further develop the Freedom of Information Act “in coordination with the BfDI.” The memorandum from the same government camp proposes stripping that very BfDI of its responsibility for freedom of information. The government promises coordination with an institution it simultaneously wants to eliminate from the process.
The memorandum goes further. The information rights of journalists and members of parliament are to be restricted. Both groups, the paper argues, use the Freedom of Information Act to circumvent “substantive limitations” – namely the narrower boundaries of press law and parliamentary questions. In the future, they should be referred to those narrower rights. The difference is decisive: The government may have to answer a press inquiry or parliamentary question, but that does not create a claim to a substantively meaningful answer or to the release of documents. People would still be allowed to ask. They simply would not receive anything.
Further restrictions are added: Research and teaching are to be excluded from the scope of the law altogether. Ongoing legislative procedures are to be exempted – information would then be available only after a law had already been passed, too late to influence it. This point is particularly serious: The phase in which a law is created is the phase in which influence takes place – through associations, law firms, and lobbyists who sometimes write the wording themselves. Anyone allowed to ask only after the decision would never learn whose handwriting was in the text. Authorities would also no longer be allowed to release documents that had not been created by the authority itself. The applicant would have to approach every authority involved individually – a labyrinth at the end of which the fee is waiting. Anyone who has ever tried to reconstruct a process involving three ministries knows the effect: Every station costs time, every station costs money, and at every station the request can end with a refusal citing one of the new exceptions.
In response to an inquiry from MDR, the Federal Ministry of the Interior neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the memoranda. In substance, a spokeswoman said the government wanted to reform the law “with added value for citizens and the administration,” while taking account of “security requirements” and a “growing hybrid threat situation.” What the added value would be for a citizen who must pay, identify themselves, and provide a reason remained open.
Why FragDenStaat Is Being Targeted
The proposed identification requirement is also central to the ministry’s plan because it would make access rights conditional on personal disclosure. heise online summarized the proposal.
Of all the points in the memorandum, one is particularly revealing because it exposes the purpose of the entire exercise. It is the identification requirement – and the justification the ministry itself provides for it.
Anyone submitting a Freedom of Information request would in the future have to identify themselves unequivocally. The memorandum states the objective openly: Portals such as “FragDenStaat” would then “no longer be usable as a front.” Only in second place does the paper mention concerns about automated mass requests or requests submitted by foreign states. The order is the message. The focus is not a foreign attacker, but a German transparency platform.
FragDenStaat, a nonprofit project of the Open Knowledge Foundation, has existed since 2011. It provides the technical infrastructure through which anyone interested can submit a request to the responsible authority with a few clicks. Around 170,000 people have used it, submitting more than 250,000 requests. The platform lowers the barrier – and precisely that low barrier is the target of the attack. An informal request by email, telephone, or letter would no longer be sufficient under the ministry’s plans. FragDenStaat editor-in-chief Arne Semsrott described the proposed changes.
Arne Semsrott, editor-in-chief of FragDenStaat, states the consequence plainly: “If this proposal succeeds, the Freedom of Information Act is dead.” The hostility has a history. In 2014, the Interior Ministry sued FragDenStaat in an attempt to prevent the publication of internal documents by invoking an alleged state copyright – unsuccessfully. In the years that followed, the platform used the Freedom of Information Act to make public what otherwise would have remained hidden. Documents from the Transport Ministry exposed the failed passenger-car toll scheme, a disaster costing hundreds of millions of euros for which Dobrindt, then minister, bore responsibility. Internal documents showed how funding was allegedly withdrawn unlawfully from the project “Radical Daughters” after its managing director publicly criticized the Federal Chancellor. Investigations revealed that his ministry had concealed the extent of far-right violence. And in 2025, FragDenStaat reported the minister over his pushbacks at Germany’s borders.
Anyone looking at this chain understands the motive. Almost everything that became uncomfortable for this minister came to light through the Freedom of Information Act. From the perspective of the apparatus, a tool that so reliably embarrasses its own administration becomes a problem – not because it fails, but because it works.
This is the core of the entire matter, and it is brutally simple. Control does not begin to work only when it strikes. It works because it could strike. An office that knows every citizen may inspect its files at any time acts differently from an office that knows it is unobserved. The mere possibility of inspection has a disciplining effect. Remove that possibility and you remove the discipline. The issue is not whether a specific request is submitted. The issue is that it could be submitted. Eliminate that possibility and you eliminate the reason to exercise restraint.
The Watchdog, Disarmed Twice
The consequences for the independent oversight authority were also discussed in reporting on the reform and on the previous commissioners’ assessments. heise online summarized that reporting.
The memorandum wants to remove the Federal Commissioner for Freedom of Information’s oversight of the law. It is worth looking at this authority for a moment – because this is not the first time this year that its teeth have been pulled.
On March 4, 2026, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig dismissed as inadmissible a lawsuit brought by the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider (case no. 6 A 2.24). She had sought access to orders issued by the Federal Intelligence Service in order to assess their compatibility with data-protection law – specifically, orders concerning covert intrusions into information-technology systems, meaning access to other people’s computers. The intelligence service refused access. The court ruled that the supervisory authority could not enforce this right of access through the courts. It lacked an “enforceable legal position.” If the intelligence service continued to refuse, the only option left to the supervisory authority was to file a complaint with the Chancellery – without any enforceable consequence. The Federal Administrative Court published the ruling.
Specht-Riemenschneider called the result what it was: It created “areas free from oversight.” The controlled authority could effectively decide for itself what it allowed the supervisor to inspect. “The legal situation is absurd,” she said. The route left to her – a complaint to the Chancellery – led nowhere; the Chancellery rejected it. A few weeks later, she announced her early departure from office after only a year and a half. The watchdog whose tools had been taken away is leaving the field. The BfDI itself described the consequences of the judgment.
Place the two events side by side. In March, a court removed an independent supervisory authority’s access to the intelligence service. In July, the Interior Ministry wants to remove that same authority’s oversight of the Freedom of Information Act. Twice within six months, the same watchdog is disarmed – once by a judgment, once by a proposed law. The BND case is a separate story that deserves separate consideration; it will be addressed elsewhere in this series. For the present context, the finding is sufficient: The institution meant to mediate between citizen and state is losing its effectiveness on two fronts at once. This is not a coincidence involving two isolated measures. It is a pattern.
The Pretext and the Numbers
Up to this point, one might object: Perhaps there are good reasons. Perhaps concern for the safety of public employees is justified; perhaps open access rights create real dangers. To be fair, the government’s justification must be examined in its strongest form before being rejected.
The government advances three arguments. First, security: a growing hybrid threat situation and the risk that hostile states could exploit open access rights to systematically extract information. Second, the protection of critical infrastructure, whose vulnerabilities should not be mapped through Freedom of Information requests. Third, the protection of employees: At the Federal Press Conference, Kornelius said the law had resulted in public servants being “drawn into the public sphere on a broad scale.” The third argument has a real core – concern about hostility in a heated political climate is not invented.
Only the numbers do not support the government’s case.
Stern magazine put the claim to the test and asked all federal ministries about specific cases in which the Freedom of Information Act had threatened employees. The result is devastating for the government’s line of argument. The Federal Ministry of the Interior, which is responsible for the law, said it knew of “no cases within the meaning of the question.” The Foreign Office: no cases. The Development Ministry: no cases. The Justice Ministry: no cases. Other ministries said they kept no statistics on the matter or declined to comment on individual cases. Even the Federal Press Office, whose spokesman had publicly presented the security argument, referred the question to the Interior Ministry – which knows of no cases. The former Federal Commissioners for Freedom of Information, Ulrich Kelber and Peter Schaar, also said they knew of no such cases from their time in office. The available evidence was summarized in the reporting on the government’s security claims.
An argument for which not a single documented case exists after two decades of practical experience with the law is not a security argument. It is a pretext.
And the security argument has a second hole. The Freedom of Information Act already contains exceptions for genuinely sensitive areas. The Federal Intelligence Service is exempt. The domestic intelligence service is exempt. Meike Kamp, Berlin’s Commissioner for Freedom of Information, points out that sufficient exceptions for protecting critical infrastructure already exist. There is no need to abolish access rights for everyone in order to protect a few genuine secrets – that is what the existing exceptions are for.
What remains is the memorandum’s own contradiction. The paper lists the prevention of hostile foreign mass requests only in second place. First comes the desire to disable a German citizens’ rights platform. Anyone who cites security as the reason but puts the suppression of a domestic civil-liberties platform first is revealing what the matter is really about. The reader can draw the conclusion.
The Two Directions
The dispute over intelligence oversight provides a parallel example of what happens when a control authority depends on voluntary cooperation. netzpolitik.org described the problem.
This proposal is not a slip. It is one part of a larger picture whose full sharpness emerges only when viewed as a whole.
The European Commission has demonstrated for years how little an access right is worth when its enforcement leads nowhere: In the dispute over the billions in vaccine purchases arranged through text messages by the Commission president, the decisive messages suddenly became “unavailable”; the EU Ombudsman criticized the failure. The right to inspect is worth only as much as the duty to preserve and release the documents. The reform dismantles precisely those duties.
In one direction, the state is expanding its view of the citizen. How an EU surveillance law rejected three times nevertheless became applicable EU law through a procedural maneuver is documented elsewhere, in the analysis “Chat Control and the EU’s Understanding of Democracy.” How interior cameras, data retention, age verification, and the digital identity wallet converge into a single profile of the transparent citizen is traced in “Five Layers, One Profile.” Added to this are the planned expansion of the Federal Intelligence Service’s powers and, in parallel, the removal of independent oversight of the service. Five movements, one direction: The state sees more.
In the opposite direction, the same government camp is taking away the citizen’s view of the state. This is the sixth movement – and the only one that does not increase the citizen’s visibility, but reduces the state’s visibility. Place the two directions on top of each other and the real effect emerges: One pole becomes transparent, the other impenetrable. The distance between sovereign and agents does not grow from one side alone – it grows from both ends at once.
And the attack on freedom of information is not limited to the federal level. The governments of Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Schleswig-Holstein want to hollow out their transparency rules; Berlin already restricted its Freedom of Information Act at the end of March 2026. And even if the larger overhaul is blocked, the federal government has further vehicles ready – through intelligence-service legislation and the Critical Infrastructure Umbrella Act – to restrict the law one step at a time.
Anyone who believes this is a new idea is mistaken. During the 2025 coalition negotiations, the working group on cutting bureaucracy had already put an unambiguous sentence on paper: “We intend to abolish the Freedom of Information Act in its current form.” The negotiator was Philipp Amthor, now Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry for Digital Affairs – and precisely the CDU politician whose entanglement in the Augustus Intelligence scandal was exposed in part thanks to the Freedom of Information Act. Internal documents showed in 2020 how Amthor opened the door to the Ministry for Economic Affairs for the U.S. startup Augustus Intelligence; he had received 2,800 stock options worth up to $250,000. The fact that the person once exposed by the law later wanted to abolish it completes the picture. The outcry over the leaked abolition plans was considerable; the CDU/CSU and SPD backed away and wrote only a “reform with added value” into the coalition agreement. The proposal has now returned through the coalition committee. Semsrott calls it “the most serious attack on state transparency in the history of the Federal Republic” and accuses the coalition of breaking its own agreement.
Germany Is Moving Backward
The political history of the proposed abolition reaches back to the coalition negotiations and has been documented by LOAD e.V..
The broader political debate over the proposed rollback has also been documented in contemporary reporting on freedom of information and state transparency.
A look across the border shows how far Germany is moving against the current.
While other states are opening their administrations, Germany wants to close its own. Austria, trapped for decades in official secrecy, abolished that system in 2025 after a long struggle and introduced a right to freedom of information. Germany, which did not adopt its own Freedom of Information Act until 2006 – later than many liberal democracies – is now shifting into reverse. One country is catching up; the other is falling back.
The global trend of recent decades has moved in one direction: More and more states introduced freedom-of-information laws, opened their administrations, and made official knowledge an accessible source. The fact that one of Europe’s largest democracies is reversing course is therefore more than a domestic German matter. It is a signal to anyone elsewhere who wants to turn the same screw – and it provides a blueprint for dismantling transparency without openly abolishing it: not through a ban, but through hurdles, fees, and exceptions.
Freedom of information is not a bureaucratic detail. It is anchored in Germany’s Basic Law. Article 5 guarantees everyone the right to “inform themselves without hindrance from generally accessible sources.” The Freedom of Information Act makes that right practical: It turns official documents into generally accessible sources. Anyone who narrows access narrows the basis on which a citizen can form an independent judgment in the first place. It is no coincidence that the Conference of Freedom of Information Commissioners has warned against a return to an era of “closed official knowledge” – a time when knowledge about the state was a privilege of those who ruled, not a matter belonging to the citizen.
Resistance and the Three Paths Ahead
It is important to establish what the situation is: None of this is law yet. There is a coalition resolution, an internal memorandum, and a statement of intent. No bill has passed parliament. That is not a reason for complacency – it is the reason this text is being written now. This is precisely the moment when resistance can still change something.
And the resistance is substantial. A petition against the plans surpassed half a million signatures within a few weeks. More than 100 organizations and media outlets have opposed the plans, including the publishers’ associations BdZV and MVFP, Transparency International Germany, the German Journalists’ Association, Reporters Without Borders, Netzwerk Recherche, and CORRECTIV. The Conference of Freedom of Information Commissioners has issued a united warning. It is a rare alliance stretching from investigative newsrooms to traditional publishers. The petition and the breadth of opposition were documented in contemporary reporting.
The statements are unusually clear. Daniel Drepper, chairman of Netzwerk Recherche, calls the plans a “frontal attack on investigative journalism.” Anette Dowideit, editor-in-chief of CORRECTIV, describes them as a “catastrophic mistake” – especially at a time when democracy needs to become more resilient, not more opaque. Tom Jennissen of the Digital Society accuses the federal government of having an “alarmingly authoritarian understanding of the state.” And Christian Mihr of Reporters Without Borders warns that what is at stake is whether the public will be able to obtain reliable state information at all in the future. These are, each in its own way, assessments by the respective organizations – but their agreement is remarkable.
The decisive fault line runs through the coalition itself. In a position paper, the SPD parliamentary group opposed the assault: A targeted reform might be conceivable, but the SPD would not accept any lowering of the existing level of transparency. Whether that sentence holds is the real question – and it remains open.
Three paths follow. First: The SPD keeps its word, and the proposal fails or is hollowed out until it becomes ineffective. Second: The SPD backs down, as it has done in its history, and the core of the plans becomes law. Third, the most likely and quietest path: The sweeping overhaul is abandoned, but the restrictions arrive piece by piece – through intelligence-service legislation, the Critical Infrastructure Umbrella Act, and the states. In the end, the result is the same, only without the single moment in which people could have mobilized against it.
What Remains
A state that wants to see the citizen but does not want to be seen by the citizen has reversed the relationship on which democracy rests. The principal becomes the monitored subject; the agent becomes unobserved. The Freedom of Information Act is the mirror in which the sovereign can examine the actions of their agents. What is currently being negotiated is not a polishing of that mirror. It is its removal.
History knows what happens when power escapes oversight. Not because those exercising it necessarily intend harm – but because unobserved power becomes a different kind of power from observed power. It does not have to justify itself. It does not have to exercise restraint. It does not have to expect anyone to look. If you take away the citizen’s ability to look, you are not taking away a form. You are taking away the last direct grip on the levers operated in the citizen’s name.
The findings are on the table. Not a single documented security case in twenty years. A memorandum that places shutting down a citizens’ platform ahead of countering foreign states. A supervisory authority disarmed twice within half a year. A law designed to create transparency that is to be destroyed in the name of transparency. And a country shifting into reverse while others are catching up.
The reader can draw the conclusion. It is their right. For now.
In-depth analysis instead of daily information overload.
About the Author
Michael Hollister
is a geopolitical analyst and investigative journalist. He served six years in the German military, including peacekeeping deployments in the Balkans (SFOR, KFOR), followed by 14 years in IT security management. His analysis draws on primary sources to examine European militarization, Western intervention policy, and shifting power dynamics across Asia. A particular focus of his work lies in Southeast Asia, where he investigates strategic dependencies, spheres of influence, and security architectures. Hollister combines operational insider perspective with uncompromising systemic critique – beyond opinion journalism. His work appears on his bilingual website (German/English) www.michael-hollister.com and in investigative outlets across the German-speaking world and the Anglosphere.
If you value independent analysis on geopolitics, international relations, and global affairs, consider supporting this publication. Your contribution helps keep this Webpage open and accessible to everyone.
Sources
- Federal Ministry of Finance, July 2, 2026 – “A Program for Growth and Employment,” results of the coalition committee (point 32): https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/DE/Downloads/2026-07-02-ergebnisse-des-koalitionsausschusses.html
- Markt und Mittelstand, July 2026 – “34 Reforms Adopted: The 2026 Coalition Package in Full” (point 32): https://www.marktundmittelstand.de/politik/reformpaket-im-wortlaut
- netzpolitik.org, July 2, 2026 – “Freedom of Information: CDU/SPD Plan Frontal Attack on Journalism and Transparency”: https://netzpolitik.org/2026/informationsfreiheit-schwarz-rot-plant-frontalangriff-auf-journalismus-und-transparenz/
- netzpolitik.org, July 23, 2026 – “FragDenStaat & Co.: Dobrindt Wants to Clear Transparency Platforms Out of the Way”: https://netzpolitik.org/2026/fragdenstaat-co-dobrindt-will-transparenz-plattformen-aus-dem-weg-raeumen/
- tagesschau.de / MDR Investigativ, July 23, 2026 – “Stricter Restrictions on Freedom of Information?”: https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/mdr/ifg-bundesinnenministerium-100.html
- heise online, July 24, 2026 – “Identification Requirement: Dobrindt Wants to Effectively Stop Freedom of Information”: https://www.heise.de/news/Identifikationspflicht-Dobrindt-will-Informationsfreiheit-faktisch-stoppen-11376595.html
- FragDenStaat, Arne Semsrott, July 23, 2026 – “New Plans at the Interior Ministry: Dobrindt Wants to Shut Down FragDenStaat”: https://fragdenstaat.de/artikel/policy/2026/07/ifg-attacke-3/
- Tagesspiegel – “Government Finds No Evidence for Its Own Security Concerns” (Stern investigation): https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/streit-uber-auskunftsrechte-regierung-findet-keine-belege-fur-eigene-sicherheitsbedenken-15838362.html
- heise online – “Freedom-of-Information Reform: Federal Government on the Defensive” (Stern investigation, Kelber/Schaar): https://www.heise.de/news/IFG-Reform-Bundesregierung-in-Erklaerungsnot-11364892.html
- Berliner Zeitung – “More Than 523,000 People Demand: No Restrictions on the Freedom of Information Act”: https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/article/ueber-523000-menschen-fordern-keine-einschraenkungen-beim-informationsfreiheitsgesetz-10198684
- Federal Administrative Court, March 4, 2026 – Press release no. 15/2026 on judgment 6 A 2.24: https://www.bverwg.de/pm/2026/15
- Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, March 4, 2026 – “Federal Administrative Court Dismisses BfDI Lawsuit”: https://www.bfdi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2026/02_Entscheidung-BVerwG-BND.html
- netzpolitik.org, March 6, 2026 – “Intelligence Oversight: Oversight Must Not Depend on Whether the Intelligence Service Cooperates Voluntarily”: https://netzpolitik.org/2026/geheimdienstkontrolle-kontrolle-darf-nicht-davon-abhaengen-ob-der-geheimdienst-freiwillig-kooperiert/
- LOAD e.V., July 7, 2026 – “Swinging the Wrecking Ball Through the Birthday Cake” (2025 AG9 quotation, Kelber/Schaar): https://load-ev.de/2026/07/07/informationsfreiheitsgesetz/
- junge Welt, July 11, 2026 – “Freedom of Information Act: Sealing the Apparatus”: https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/525868.informationsfreiheitsgesetz-den-apparat-abdichten.html
- Der Spiegel – “Reform of the Freedom of Information Act: The CDU/CSU and SPD Must Not Get Away with This Trick” (fee calculation): https://www.spiegel.de/politik/reform-des-informationsfreiheitsgesetzes-mit-diesem-trick-duerfen-union-und-spd-nicht-durchkommen-a-aa515591-fba6-452a-a0f0-1c128c23e64a
- Michael Hollister, July 17, 2026 – “Chat Control and the EU’s Understanding of Democracy”: https://www.michael-hollister.com/de/2026/07/17/die-chatkontrolle-und-das-demokratieverstaendnis-der-eu/
- Michael Hollister, July 12, 2026 – “Five Layers, One Profile – How the EU Is Building the Transparent Citizen”: https://www.michael-hollister.com/de/2026/07/12/fuenf-schichten-ein-profil-wie-die-eu-den-glaesernen-buerger-baut/
- RT DE, July 25, 2026 – “Freedom of Information, Goodbye: Federal Government Shields Itself”: https://de.rt.com/inland/286772-informationsfreiheit-ade-bundesregierung-schottet-sich/
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