Berlin - The German government announced yesterday a major change in civil liberties law that will grant police far greater powers to plant bugging devices in private homes to collect evidence against suspected criminals.
The landmark reform, reached after delicate negotiations between Chancellor Helmut Kohl's governing conservatives and the opposition Social Democrats, will permit eavesdropping practices that have been banned by the constitution since 1945 because of widespread abuses by the secret police during the Nazi era.
