Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: How Brussels’ ‘Media Freedom’ Act Destroys Press Protection

Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: How Brussels' 'Media Freedom' Act Destroys Press Protection * The EU’s Media Freedom Act presents itself as a safeguard for journalists – yet in reality it enables surveillance, source exposure and state intrusion. Behind its democratic façade emerges a tool that weakens press freedom and quietly prepares the ground for authoritarian control.

from Michael Hollister

First published at Transition News on November 05, 2025

2.294 words * 12 minutes readingtime

What authoritarian regimes accomplish with machine guns, Brussels achieves with legislative text.

Anyone who finds this statement exaggerated should take a close look at the new Article 4 of the EU Media Freedom Act. At first glance, it appears to be a milestone in press protection: no coercion to disclose sources, no surveillance of journalists, no deployment of spyware against newsrooms—so go the noble-sounding promises. But those who read carefully will recognize that real protection ends exactly where things become politically sensitive. And that’s when the supposed shield transforms into a Trojan horse.

British journalists should pay close attention. While the UK is no longer in the EU, similar mechanisms are being constructed through the Online Safety Act—and European legislation has historically served as a template for Westminster’s own restrictions on press freedom.

The Exception Becomes the Rule

The central protective paragraph of the EU Media Freedom Act is unambiguous on paper—and worthless in practice. Because it contains a far-reaching exception clause: when it lies in the “overriding public interest,” journalists may very well be surveilled, their sources spied upon, their homes searched, and their communication devices infiltrated. The deployment of “intrusive surveillance software”—meaning Pegasus and everything that functions similarly—is explicitly permitted, provided there is an “overriding reason” and some court grants approval after the fact.

What exactly this “overriding interest” means remains deliberately unclear. It is not defined, not limited, not reviewed. The door stands open—and everything hinges on the interpretation by whatever political or judicial authority happens to be in power. And where room for interpretation exists, it will be exploited.

This is not speculation but political reality. From France’s anti-terror laws to Germany’s catch-all paragraphs like §129b—everywhere we see how former exceptions became everyday practice.

No Authoritarian State Required

You don’t need an authoritarian state to silence critical voices. A democratic state with a power apparatus that no longer views journalism as a control mechanism but as a disruptive factor is sufficient. And a law that empowers this apparatus whenever it deems necessary. Anyone who constructs such legislation doesn’t do so accidentally. Nobody wakes up in the morning and drafts a text like this. Behind it lies political calculation, experience from the past—and perhaps even preparation for the future. Those who legally secure themselves today are planning for the emergency. And from the perspective of power, the emergency is when journalists uncover things they’d better not know.

The dangerous part is the democratic façade. There’s a legal text, a procedure, judicial oversight—at least on paper. But when the criteria are unclear, judicial review can occur retroactively, and the burden of proof practically lies with the journalist, then this isn’t protection—it’s an alibi.

Systemic Power Instead of Conspiracy

No conspiracy is needed, no shadow government, no secret plan. A system in which political, security-political, and administrative interests quietly interlock is sufficient. Nobody needs malicious intent—the desire to remain capable of action at all times is enough. And if a foundational pillar of democracy—press freedom—gets weakened in the process, then that’s simply the price. Legal language renders the attack invisible. It doesn’t come in uniform but in a briefcase.

A legislative text like this doesn’t emerge by accident. Lawyers, civil servants, politicians, advisors sit there. They formulate consciously, review consciously, and they consciously leave these rubber paragraphs in. This gets discussed, adjusted, proofread—and still passed.

And that means: Multiple people in positions of power are fine with creating a tool that can be used to arrest, surveil, and ruin journalists if necessary—and do so completely legally.

An Attack on Democracy’s Foundation

Journalism is not simply “expression of opinion” but one of the supporting pillars of the separation of powers. When you bring it under control, the control system collapses. Then there’s no more oversight—only administration.

The examples are not isolated cases. Whether Ken Jebsen, Alina Lipp, Torsten Röper, or Michael Ballweg—one may debate individual content. But what’s decisive is: the measures are not proportionate. They are repressive, intimidating, existence-destroying. And they follow a pattern: whoever reports too loudly, too uncomfortably, too independently gets visited. By the state. By the judiciary. By the banking system. Or directly by domestic intelligence.

Ken Jebsen—publicly discredited, financially blocked, media-banned. Michael Ballweg—over a year in pretrial detention, without conviction, for alleged donation irregularities, meanwhile documented as a problematic case by Amnesty International. Alina Lipp—driven out of Germany, accounts frozen, because she reported on the Ukraine war from a pro-Russian perspective. Torsten Röper—hit with travel bans and payment blockades because he lives and works in Russia.

And then comes the most insidious element: the broad public remains silent. Because they think: “Well, that person was somewhat extreme anyway”—or: “There must be something to it.” But the message is clear: “If you lean out too far, you’re next.”

Attack on the Free Democratic Constitutional Order

What’s at stake here is more than a political misstep. It’s a direct attack on the foundation upon which democracies like Germany rest: the free democratic constitutional order (FDGO). This order—codified and protected in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany—forms the core of German state identity.

The Basic Law guarantees in Article 1, Paragraph 1 the inviolability of human dignity—and obligates all state authority to protect it. In Article 5, Paragraph 1, freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, and freedom of reporting are expressly guaranteed—without censorship. These rights don’t exist as friendly concessions but as inalienable defensive rights against the state.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution Act is equally clear. In § 4, Paragraph 2, it states: “Efforts directed against the free democratic constitutional order are, in particular, those aimed at impairing or eliminating the fundamental principles specified in the Basic Law.”

These fundamental principles, according to consistent jurisprudence of the Federal Constitutional Court, include among others: human dignity (Art. 1 GG), popular sovereignty (Art. 20 Para. 1 GG), separation of powers, government accountability, rule of law, judicial independence—and precisely also: freedom of expression and the press.

A law that undermines this area—by relativizing press freedom, placing source protection under reservation, and legalizing state surveillance of journalistic work—therefore no longer moves within the constitutional framework but structurally violates it.

The great irony is: if a citizens’ association or political party proposed such a law that permits surveillance and punishment of journalists, domestic intelligence would immediately be on the case. But when the same measure comes from the government level, it’s sold as progress. Yet precisely this approach fulfills—according to the definition of the BVerfSchG—all criteria of an anti-constitutional effort.

Not an Isolated Case—A Political Direction

The EU Media Freedom Act is not an isolated problem. It joins a chain of laws, regulations, and political measures that have been pointing in the same direction for years: more control, more surveillance, less freedom.

Years ago, the so-called “Police Task Act” was massively tightened in several German states. In Bavaria, for example, the concept of “impending danger” was introduced in 2018 (Bavarian Police Task Act). This enables preventive detention without judicial order, originally up to 30 days, now potentially extendable indefinitely—a direct breach of the fundamental principle of presumption of innocence.

Then came the Digital Services Act (DSA). Officially a law for better regulation of large platforms, it actually contains possibilities for massive restriction of freedom of expression. Platforms can be obligated to delete content—not only by judicial order but also at the behest of state agencies. What gets deleted is decided not by courts—but often by algorithms or political agencies in fast-track procedures.

The upcoming Data Governance Acts and AI regulations of the EU also head in this direction. They’re meant to centrally record, make accessible, and technically regulate data. With each new regulation, a network of access rights, disclosure obligations, and possibilities for real-time surveillance emerges.

The same applies to the planned digital identity and EU ID Wallet. Anyone who must manage their driver’s license, ID card, vaccination certificate, and bank connection digitally in a central system in the future is completely vulnerable. A wrong word, an unwelcome publication—and the digital account gets blocked, the passport deactivated, access to government services interrupted. All of this could be technically implemented with the push of a button—and the legal frameworks for it are currently being created.

And data retention is also part of this development. Despite the ECJ ruling of September 20, 2022, which declared blanket storage of traffic and location data incompatible with EU law, certain exceptions remain permitted—and thus room for national laws under the guise of “danger prevention.”

Anyone who believes the gradual curtailment of rights is merely coincidence or reaction to external circumstances has not recognized the overall picture. It’s no longer about individual cases—it’s about a political direction. And it shows very clearly: less control of power. More control over citizens.

History Repeats Itself—Only Digitally

What we’re experiencing today is not without precedent. History knows numerous examples where freedoms were not abolished overnight but eroded piece by piece—always with “necessity” and “public interest” as justification.

The late Weimar Republic was characterized by emergency decrees. Based on Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, the Reich President could suspend fundamental rights. After the Reichstag fire on February 27, 1933, the infamous Reichstag Fire Decree was issued. It suspended personal freedom, inviolability of the home, postal and telecommunications secrecy, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and property rights.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act was passed in the United States (Public Law 107-56, 2001). It massively expanded the powers of FBI, CIA, and NSA—including access to financial and communication data without judicial approval, covert investigations, and permanent surveillance. Whistleblower Edward Snowden later revealed that the NSA systematically accessed metadata, phone connections, and emails worldwide—even from unsuspected citizens (The Guardian, NSA Files, 2013).

The GDR declared itself in its constitution as a “free socialist state”—but reality looked different: censorship laws, no independent media, the Stasi with over 90,000 full-time and 180,000 unofficial employees. Goal: total control over communication, thoughts, loyalties.

What used to be implemented with uniforms and typewriters now runs through software, platform policies, AI, and access laws. The effect remains the same: control. Only the style is smarter. Legal. Digital. Controlled.

What’s Emerging Here Is Systemic Transformation

What’s taking shape here is a systemic restructuring—a quiet but precisely steered power shift that intervenes deeply into the DNA of European democracies. Each law by itself may still seem debatable. But in combination, an authoritarian toolkit forms that in its effect exceeds everything once called the free democratic constitutional order.

One law permits locking people up without conviction. Another obligates platforms to delete unwelcome content. A third stores every digital step preemptively. A fourth digitalizes our entire identity—and thereby makes it centrally controllable. And now a media freedom law that in truth places source protection at disposition.

What’s being built here is not a protected space for democracy—but a digital oppression system with legal framework. To put it in the words of Dutch historian Kees van der Pijl, an emeritus political scientist who among other things analyzed globalization and its mechanisms of domination: “What’s unfolding before our eyes is the gradual replacement of Western liberalism with an authoritarian state and societal structure.”

The authoritarian state of the future no longer needs boots. It comes in suit and tie, with a laptop under its arm—and with an alleged protective law in hand. Control is no longer exercised through violence but through data, laws, and algorithms. Resistance is no longer beaten down but logged out, deleted, demonetized. Whoever is inconvenient disappears from digital space—and thus from public discourse.

The greatest danger is not that this system is coming. The greatest danger is that it’s already here—and most people don’t notice it.

That’s why we need public awareness, contradiction, and enlightenment now. Because anyone living in a system that can shut down at any time what you are, know, or say—no longer lives in freedom. But in a controlled simulation of it.

And that’s exactly what we should protect ourselves against.

Sources

Legal Foundations:

EU Regulations:

Judgments and Decisions:

Historical Documents:

  • Reichstag Fire Decree (1933): Verfassungen.de
  • USA PATRIOT Act (Public Law 107-56, 2001)
  • The Guardian: NSA Files (Snowden Dossier, 2013)

Documented Individual Cases:

Critical Analyses:

  • German Bar Association
  • Amnesty International
  • Verfassungsblog
  • netzpolitik.org
  • European Digital Rights (EDRi)
  • Society for Civil Liberties
  • epicenter.works
  • Digital Society

[Cf. Kees van der Pijl, Pandemic of Control, 2022, who speaks of a transition to technocratic-authoritarian forms of government in the West; see also States of Emergency, 2023]

© Michael Hollister — Redistribution, publication or reuse of this text is explicitly welcome. The only requirement is proper source attribution and a link to www.michael-hollister.com (or in printed form the note “Source: www.michael-hollister.com”).

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