This Almost Makes Me Wish That I Was German

Please note the modifier here, "Almost".

Living in an America where pretty much every FBI anti-terrorism operation involves paying an informant to entrap some loser, it is heartening that a German prosecutor has been given the sack over investigating journalists for treason:

Netzpolitik.org, the website at the centre of the treason scandal in Germany, is the real winner in the whole furore as a senior German official was forcibly retired over the scandal, editor Markus Beckedahl told el Reg this morning.

Last night, Germany's chief federal prosecutor Harald Range was given the boot by German Justice Minister Heiko Maas over his handling of the affair. Technically, Range resigned, but it was his decision to pursue Beckedahl and fellow journalist Andrew Meister for treason that led to his downfall.

The journalists, meanwhile, have seen donations to their website come flooding in. The pair were under investigation for treason for supposedly betraying state secrets after they published leaked documents relating to plans to monitor Twitter and Facebook chats, as well as a €2.75m project to process massive online data sets.

This sort of law enforcement and prosecutorial overreach gets promotions in the US.

It's nice to see that there are countries where this bullsh%$ is not tolerated.