Last week, we reported that popular German digital rights blog Netzpolitik.org had been charged with treason as a result of its reporting on leaked documents about the German government’s mass surveillance plans. We later learned that no charges had in fact been filed (and corrected our report), but there were still signs that an investigation was underway, targeting either the blog itself or simply the suspected sources of the leaks. The blog has now confirmed [English translation here] authorities are investigating Netzpolitik journalists Markus Beckedahl and Andre Meister, along with an “unknown” source, on “suspicion of treason.”

The investigation is being conducted under § 94 of German‘s Criminal Code [English translation here], which considers the leaking of state secrets to a foreign power, or to anyone else with the intention of damaging the Republic, to be a crime, punishable of not less than one year in prison—and up to life, in „serious“ cases.