Press announcement: BÜPF-Referendum is coming!

by Referendumskomitees BÜPF on 2016-03-26

Press announcement from 2016-03-23

The BÜPF-Referendum is coming!

On 2016-03-22 an alliance of more than a dozend organizations and political parties has decided to start a Referendum against the revised version of the "Bundesgesetzt zur Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs" (National law for the surveillance of postal and communication services), or BÜPF for short. The BÜPF has passed the last votes in the parliament on 2016-03-18. It contains a whole range of points that threaten basic rights and the freedom of Swiss citizens. By the look of things, the BÜPF will be published on 2016-03-29, starting the 100 day Referendum periode which will end on 2016-07-07.

The following political parties are supporting the Referendum and vouched to contribute a number signatures in relation to their size and strenght:

  • Alternative Liste
  • Jungfreisinnige Schweiz
  • Junge Grünliberale
  • Junge SVP
  • Juso Schweiz
  • PdA
  • Swiss Pirate Party

In addition to the political parties, a number of organisations are supporting the Referendum as well:

  • Digitale Gesellschaft
  • Verein Grundrechte
  • Operation Libero
  • Internet Society Schweiz ISOC-CH
  • Chaos Computer Club Switzerland
  • Stiftung pEp
  • Wilhelm Tux

There is also a number of other organisations and parties that did not commit themselves to a specific number of collected signatures but are supporting the Referendum nonetheless. Usually they will be contributing by providing logistics services, financial support or raising awareness to support the collecting of signatures.

The committee will announce the arguments against the revised law in a press announcement in April. The most important reasons however, will not change and are listed here:

  1. The extension: The list of offenses and the applicable areas get extended in a major way to the point where even individuals and organisations would have to provide access to their Wifi, mail servers and other communication infrastructure.
  2. The Telecommunications data retention for all communication done by all citizens is disproportionate. Even more so after the EuGH and other high courts in Europe have pointed out the violation of basic rights resulting from these practices.
  3. Intruding computers to install government issued trojan software is very dangerous. It compromises the system's security and endangers the integrity of proof which puts the constitutional legality to question.
  4. The use of spy software for the investigation of relatively minor crimes (such as theft) is disproportionate.
  5. In addition to the above mentioned points, government issued trojan software is not even necessary in the first place. Data from encrypted communication can usually be obtained from the operator of the service in question via court order.
  6. National communication companies are put to a disadvantage under the burden of having to comply with the law which does not affect other players in the global market.

stopbuepf.ch / buepf.ch / uberwachungsstaatnein.ch

Download of the official (German) version of this press release