German privacy laws are very likely just an illusion. After the NSA scandal
has been talked over in the German news and there were several talks between
the German Secretary of State and (if I'm not mistaken) Obama, the newest bit
of info is, that Germany was using a version of NSAs spying software on their
own.
At first the fact that NSA was spying on the citizens of Germany caused
surprise and made a lot of officials angry (how can they do something like
that, our countries are friends, this is not how friends treat each other,
this is an unacceptable invasion of privacy), now it comes out they were
spying themselves.
At this point I don't believe anything the German politicians say anymore. My
opinion is, they spy on us as much as they can, all the time, since long. At
the very least since 09/11.
We do have very neat looking privacy laws though, but they are just a waste
of paper.