The investigation against a Ukrainian criminal women trafficing organisation that has also led to cocaine possession charges against the tv talk show host and vice chaiman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany is having a positive side effects. Just as Mr Friedman’s home was raided and searched for cocaine because he had talked to call-girl-ring pimps whose phones were monitored by police, some German Parlamentarians seem to have become involved in this investigation.

Prostitution (but not pimpimp) is entirely legal in Germany so they could not be charged for indulging in sexual favours of East European women, but, well – for all our old European decadent open-mindedness – paying for sexual services is still something at least most public figures will certainly never talk about freely (But then again, there are public figures who used their party-paid-for airline miles for personal trips to Bangkok…)

So now German MPs are seriously annoyed about the simplicity with which “third parties” to an investigation can become dragged into a criminal prosecution and possibly have to bear the negative consequences of publicity, an argument made for ages by just about every privacy advocate with a public voice, including Green MP Christian Stroebele.

While I usually don’t agree with his loony-left arguments, I hope he is right when he says that (according to Spiegel Online) personal vulnerability could help MPs from all parties to rebalance privacy and security arguments.