Insult a Politician? Then You Can Go To Jail for Up To 3 Years!

By Lisa Haven

Imagine insulting a politician online and suddenly facing a massive fine, a police investigation, or potentially even years behind bars. It sounds like something that could never happen in a modern Western democracy. Unfortunately, Germany is showing us otherwise. And what concerns me even more is this: while America does not currently have the same laws Germany does, pieces of the technological infrastructure that could make something similar possible are already being built right here in the United States.

Germany has a law known as Section 188 of its criminal code that specifically deals with insults, malicious gossip, and defamation directed at people involved in political life. The law states that if an insult is made publicly against someone involved in the political life of the nation because of the position that person holds, and that statement is considered capable of making the politician’s public activities substantially more difficult, the person responsible can face a fine or imprisonment. Depending on the offense, the penalties described under the law can become extremely serious.

Think about what that means. Politicians are supposed to work for the people. Citizens should have the ability to criticize them, mock them, challenge their policies, expose wrongdoing, and tell them exactly what they think. Yet Germany has created a legal framework in which certain speech involving politicians can potentially become a criminal matter.

German political commentator Naomi Seibt has repeatedly warned about Section 188 and what she sees happening around it. She argues that the law creates a system where politicians effectively receive protections ordinary citizens do not. But the law itself is only part of the story.

According to Seibt, artificial intelligence is also being used to scan enormous numbers of social-media posts and identify content that could potentially lead to complaints. She specifically discussed a German company using AI technology to combat online hate speech and so-called digital violence. Think about the implications. Instead of somebody manually stumbling across your post and filing a complaint, artificial intelligence can potentially search through enormous amounts of online speech.

Your comments, your social-media posts, your political opinions, your jokes, your criticism—everything can be analyzed at speeds that would have been impossible just a few years ago. According to the concerns raised in my report, that information can then become part of complaints that ultimately reach authorities.

That is where this gets frightening. We are moving from a world where governments and institutions could theoretically monitor people to a world where artificial intelligence gives them the technological ability to monitor massive populations automatically. And once that infrastructure exists, the biggest question becomes: Who controls it?

Because Germany may be showing us one version of how that technology can be used, but another system is quietly developing alongside it.

Catherine Austin Fitts recently discussed something during an interview with Tucker Carlson that I believe everyone needs to understand. She called it an “automatic third lock.” Here is the simplest way to understand the concept. Imagine I want to buy your blue shirt. I hand you cash. You hand me the shirt. There are basically two parties involved in the transaction: you and me.

But once everything becomes digital, another party can sit between us—the financial system, the bank, the payment processor, and potentially, eventually, an automated system capable of deciding whether the transaction is permitted at all.

Fitts argues that governments, central banks, and financial institutions could ultimately create an automatic third lock capable of applying incredibly complicated rules to individual people. Under such a system, your money would no longer simply represent something you own. The system could potentially determine when, where, how, or whether you are allowed to use it.

That could theoretically include sanctions, financial restrictions, negative interest rates, customized rules, taxes, or other limitations. And artificial intelligence makes that level of individualized control possible on a scale we have never seen before.

Imagine a system capable of creating different financial rules for millions of people simultaneously. One rule for you. Another rule for your neighbor. Another rule for somebody the government considers a risk. And another rule for somebody considered compliant. That starts sounding an awful lot like a social-credit system.

Go back to the COVID era. During the pandemic, Americans watched governments exercise powers that many people previously would have considered unimaginable. One example came out of Kentucky in 2020, where officials announced that license plates of people attending certain mass gatherings, including church services, could be recorded and provided to local health departments.

Whether you agreed with those policies or not, Americans should remember what that period demonstrated. Technology can make enforcement incredibly easy. License-plate readers can track vehicles. Cameras can follow movements. Phones generate location information. Banks record transactions. Social-media companies know what people post. Search engines know what people search for. Artificial intelligence can now process enormous portions of that information almost instantly.

That is why I have been sounding the alarm about technologies like automated license-plate-reader networks. These cameras are appearing across the country on highways, streets, around businesses, and throughout communities. Supporters will argue they are useful crime-fighting tools. But Americans should also be asking what happens when the same infrastructure is placed into the hands of a government that decides certain lawful behavior needs to be monitored.

The technology itself does not know whether the person using it is benevolent or authoritarian. It simply does what it is told. Today the cameras may search for a stolen vehicle. Tomorrow, who knows what information a future administration could demand?

That is the conversation we need to be having now—before the infrastructure becomes so deeply embedded into society that removing it becomes almost impossible.

Perhaps one of the most disturbing parts of this technological transformation is that government does not necessarily have to be the one making every decision. Private companies increasingly use artificial intelligence to evaluate people as well.

A lawsuit discussed in my report raises concerns about the use of AI in employment screening. Companies can use automated systems to process enormous numbers of job applicants and assign scores or recommendations before a human being ever seriously considers the application.

That creates another enormous question: What information should an AI system be allowed to use when judging whether you deserve a job? Your work history? Obviously. Your qualifications? Of course. But what about your location? Your online activity? Your social-media presence? Your personal interests? Your political opinions? Your web history?

Once artificial intelligence begins assembling massive digital profiles of individuals, the distinction between evaluating somebody’s professional qualifications and evaluating the person themselves becomes dangerously thin. You could theoretically reach a point where somebody never gets interviewed, never talks to a hiring manager, and never receives an explanation. An algorithm simply decides: No.

That should concern conservatives. It should concern liberals. It should concern libertarians. It should concern absolutely everyone. Because political power changes hands. The surveillance system you support when your political party controls it may eventually be controlled by somebody you despise.

That is ultimately why I am talking about Germany. This story isn’t simply about whether somebody can insult a German politician. It is about the architecture being created around us. AI capable of scanning speech. Digital financial systems capable of controlling transactions. Cameras capable of following movements. Algorithms capable of evaluating employment opportunities. Databases capable of combining enormous amounts of personal information.

Every one of these technologies can be defended individually. A camera fights crime. An AI system makes hiring faster. A bank stops fraud. A social-media monitoring tool fights illegal threats. But eventually we have to zoom out and look at the entire picture.

What happens when all these systems begin communicating with one another? What happens when artificial intelligence can connect your identity, finances, movements, employment, online speech, and political activity? And most importantly, what happens when the wrong people gain control of that system?

Americans have traditionally relied on constitutional protections, especially the First Amendment, to prevent government from criminalizing political criticism. But constitutional rights must be defended culturally and technologically as well as legally.

Because the greatest danger may not arrive as one giant law announcing that Americans have lost their freedoms. It could happen piece by piece. One camera. One database. One algorithm. One financial restriction. One speech-monitoring program. One supposedly temporary emergency measure at a time.

Until eventually the machinery required to create a much more restrictive society is already sitting there waiting to be activated.

Germany should serve as a warning. China should serve as a warning. And Americans should be paying very close attention to what is being constructed here at home.

Because the question is no longer whether technology can create unprecedented levels of surveillance and control. It can. The question is whether Americans are going to demand limits on that power before those systems become impossible to escape.