"Landesverrat" is the core paragraph around the espionage complex. It criminalizes (among other things) passing secret information to foreign powers.
As usual when comparing different legal systems it gets muddy. I guess what you're having in mind is more like "Hochverrat" (high treason).
An aside: what are the connotations of "treason" and "treachery" in English? Is treason the criminal act against your country and "treachery" more personal, betraying a friend?
Is treason the criminal act against your country and "treachery" more personal, betraying a friend?
"treachery" is the more general term, that would apply to anything from personal betrayal to particularly underhanded business dealings. It's roughly equivalent to "betrayal", though more emphatic.
"treason" can technically refer to the same thing (you could say "this is treason" to refer to some personal act of betrayal, though it would come across as hyperbole), but in practice it almost exclusively refers to the crime.
"Treachery" just means a deep betrayal of trust. Treason, very bad personal betrayals and things like industrial espionage could all be called treachery without much argument.
To expand on that, "treachery" emphasizes a connotation of moral judgement that is less explicit in "treason", namely because "treason" is always against the legitimate state (outside of hyperbole), and both the legitimacy of the state and the morality of betraying it are recognized as matters on which opinions may differ. One could be treasonous without being treacherous, or treacherous without being treasonous.
An opinion regarding usage from a native speaker, here: it might for instance be considered treacherous to lure the King into a forest where he may be murdered, in return for a rich reward from a pretender to the throne; but merely supporting the pretender in hopes of a reward, even to the point of secretly betraying the King, might in other circumstances be plainly and distastefully treasonous without evoking the same connotations as treachery.
Speaking normally and not legally, treason is against e.g. your country, treachery is more personal. But treachery is more or less just any underhandedness, it isn't necessarily a betrayal of a normative trust like family or friendship or even business obligations. If you were a robber in a band of robbers, and you stole all the money by deceiving them, that would be treachery even if none of you particularly trusted the other. It would also be treachery, in war, to bait the other side by asking for a parley, then killing them.
There are archaic British legal meanings of the word treachery which might parallel your distinction of Landesverrat and Hochverrat, I am not sure. But only lawyers on the Commonwealth side of the fence would likely understand that meaning.
In the US treason is very narrowly defined by the Constitution to be (paraphrasing) intentionally waging war against the US or aiding the enemy, confirmed by two witnesses to the act. It is quite possible that Snowden could be convicted of espionage but not treason, because we are not waging war with anyone, not even ISIS, therefore we dont have any enemies in this sense. The term treason when used in US politics is nearly always hyperbole.
Comments
"Landesverrat" is the core paragraph around the espionage complex. It criminalizes (among other things) passing secret information to foreign powers.
As usual when comparing different legal systems it gets muddy. I guess what you're having in mind is more like "Hochverrat" (high treason).
An aside: what are the connotations of "treason" and "treachery" in English? Is treason the criminal act against your country and "treachery" more personal, betraying a friend?
"treachery" is the more general term, that would apply to anything from personal betrayal to particularly underhanded business dealings. It's roughly equivalent to "betrayal", though more emphatic.
"treason" can technically refer to the same thing (you could say "this is treason" to refer to some personal act of betrayal, though it would come across as hyperbole), but in practice it almost exclusively refers to the crime.
"Treachery" just means a deep betrayal of trust. Treason, very bad personal betrayals and things like industrial espionage could all be called treachery without much argument.
To expand on that, "treachery" emphasizes a connotation of moral judgement that is less explicit in "treason", namely because "treason" is always against the legitimate state (outside of hyperbole), and both the legitimacy of the state and the morality of betraying it are recognized as matters on which opinions may differ. One could be treasonous without being treacherous, or treacherous without being treasonous.
An opinion regarding usage from a native speaker, here: it might for instance be considered treacherous to lure the King into a forest where he may be murdered, in return for a rich reward from a pretender to the throne; but merely supporting the pretender in hopes of a reward, even to the point of secretly betraying the King, might in other circumstances be plainly and distastefully treasonous without evoking the same connotations as treachery.
Speaking normally and not legally, treason is against e.g. your country, treachery is more personal. But treachery is more or less just any underhandedness, it isn't necessarily a betrayal of a normative trust like family or friendship or even business obligations. If you were a robber in a band of robbers, and you stole all the money by deceiving them, that would be treachery even if none of you particularly trusted the other. It would also be treachery, in war, to bait the other side by asking for a parley, then killing them.
There are archaic British legal meanings of the word treachery which might parallel your distinction of Landesverrat and Hochverrat, I am not sure. But only lawyers on the Commonwealth side of the fence would likely understand that meaning.
In the US treason is very narrowly defined by the Constitution to be (paraphrasing) intentionally waging war against the US or aiding the enemy, confirmed by two witnesses to the act. It is quite possible that Snowden could be convicted of espionage but not treason, because we are not waging war with anyone, not even ISIS, therefore we dont have any enemies in this sense. The term treason when used in US politics is nearly always hyperbole.
Your guess about the connotations is correct.
Thanks to all of you!