THEIR adult terrorist mentors call them the “cubs of the caliphate”. Some are no more than 12 years old, like the German-Iraqi boy whom the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group recruited recently to plant explosive devices near a Christmas market in Ludwigshafen, a city on the banks of the River Rhine.

According to German police, the boy had most likely been radicalised after communicating on social media with an unidentified member of IS over the Telegram instant messaging app. That he was caught is thought to be the result of various forms of surveillance deployed by the security services.

The Ludwigshafen case and that of Tunisian Anis Amri, the chief suspect in the Berlin Christmas market truck attack that killed 12 people, have once again focused minds in Germany and elsewhere on the issues of surveillance, security and private rights.

On Wednesday the German government endorsed a package of security bills, including broadening video surveillance and allowing federal police to wear bodycams. This was no knee-jerk reaction to the latest terror attacks as draft legislation had been in the works for some time. That said, the question remains whether it will be enough to satisfy the German public in a country subjected to seven terror attacks since January.

The issue of surveillance is a sensitive one in a country where the traumas of the Nazi Gestapo and East German Communist secret police, the Stasi, are still vivid memories. Let’s not forget that both the Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck were born and raised in the shadow of the Stasi. Both, too, are leaders of a country whose data protection law historically values privacy rights. It’s interesting how the latest bill, while placing a high value on the protection of life, does so while safeguarding personal freedoms.

Balancing these two things, security and private rights, has always been tricky. We all want to be kept safe from terrorism. With this aim in mind, many of us might accept our privacy being occasionally compromised. Then again, many of us too would draw the line at giving consent to the police or government to arbitrarily delve into our online browsing records or emails as they saw fit.

That is precisely what the UK’s controversial surveillance law, the Investigatory Powers Act or “snoopers charter”, seeks to enable even if the European Court of Justice (ECJ) put something of a kibosh on its progress this week after ruling that the data collection aims were simply not permissible. That data refers among other things to the requirement that internet service providers keep records of their users’ web browsing data for a year so that it can be accessed by a list of government, security services and police departments.

In effect, it would legalise a whole range of tools for snooping and hacking by the security services unmatched by any other country in Western Europe or even the US. In its ruling the ECJ concluded that it was “likely to cause the persons concerned to feel that their private lives are the subject of constant surveillance”. How right. I really don’t relish the idea that the Government and its agencies would have access to information on every website I visit or app I use, or information on my family, friends, acquaintances, working environment, earnings, and so on.

Under these proposed laws they don’t need your passwords to access such data and it would be done not by senior officials but, potentially, thousands of individuals who can scrutinise your world without you knowing. Equally worrying is that wrongdoing by our own Government, police and security services is unlikely to come to light given the construct of the new laws. Within the statute are provisions to prevent whistleblowers coming forward effectively turning anything they reveal about surveillance orders into “unauthorised disclosures” and a criminal offence.

These are powers more suited to a dictatorship than a democracy. The ECJ’s ruling is welcome. It means that, as it stands, the Investigatory Powers Act has been judged to be on shaky legal ground and key parts will need to be changed. Given also that the ECJ’s decision was made before the formal process of UK withdrawal from the EU has been triggered, it will probably remain binding.

Amid the pressing debate in Europe over the proper limits between national security and privacy rights, the decision is sure to focus the minds of politicians in Germany and France seeking to expand surveillance capabilities. Those who make the case for increased surveillance usually do so from the position of wanting blanket surveillance of everyone, not just terror suspects. It’s curious, then, to find that many terror suspects like Anis Amri are just the latest in a long line of those who were on intelligence watchlists for some time.

Others include the attackers in Paris and Brussels, the killers of Lee Rigby in London and the Boston bombers. As it stands, many Western European intelligence services appear to have their work cut out dealing with those already under surveillance.

Richard Barrett, who was head of counter-terrorism at Britain’s foreign intelligence agency MI6, made that point yesterday in a BBC radio interview, noting that in Germany alone as many as 7,000 potential terror suspects are at large. This was before the additional ranks of “lone wolves” and “cubs of the caliphate” tapping into jihadist propaganda online. They are incredibly difficult to unearth in the first place. Just like the French and Belgian intelligence services following attacks in those countries, Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and other agencies are sure to face pressing questions in the days ahead.

As ever, the terrorists want nothing more than to provoke an over reaction. Their aim is to make nations like Germany and other democracies sacrifice the very values that set decent people and societies apart from the twisted ideology of the bombers and gunmen. The terrorists know too that so often the response they provoke corrodes and divides our society.

“These are Merkel’s dead,” declared Marcus Pretzell, of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as events unfolded in Berlin this week. In the UK, our homegrown man of the right, Nigel Farage, didn’t waste time adding to the chorus of bitterness that is music to the ears of terrorists trying to create division and acrimony. “Terrible news from Berlin but no surprise. Events like these will be the Merkel legacy,” tweeted Farage.

It was a shameful if typical observation against Chancellor Merkel and her government, one that has shown incredible tolerance and forbearance through recent tough times.

Here’s hoping Ms Merkel and her government continue to display such qualities in facing down terrorism and striking that crucial balance between security and privacy rights. Britain would do well learn from it.