Ensuring the Possibility of Internet-Based Communication – an Assessment of the Concept of Protection in German Basic Law

Based on a comparison of models for information infrastructure, this project establishes a differentiation of levels by content, code (logical-infrastructural level) and channel (physical-infrastructural level) concerning the internet. Following this, it will be combined with commonly necessary and actual conditions to a matrix, which will provide the analytical aspects needed for further legal examination.

At first, these three levels will be examined under constitutional law. The analysis shows, to what extent the already existing constitutional guarantees meet the previously identified aspects. Thus, it will be clear, to what extent the constitution ensures the possibility of internet-based communication to individual holders of fundamental rights. 

Subsequently, selected regulatory regimes of telecommunication and copyright law will be assessed, for various levels of technical information transference, whether the current assurance, as provided by sub-constitutional legislation, of individual, Internet-based access to information accords with the identified demands of constitutional law.