This is just summer theater. Other news of the day were a guy who's been put in a train while sleeping on his bed and the fact that Steve Jobs walks to work.

Many constitutional law experts, including some former Bundesverfassungsrichter (supreme court judges) have said on several occasions that this law will not pass the constitutional assessment of the Bundesverfassungsgericht (supreme court), for many reasons (being not formally correct, being uneffective, abridging basic rights etc.) Everyone is waiting for the law to come into force, since only then everyone is allowed to appeal against it. At first, it should be August 1st, but then the government noticed they needed to show it to the EU commission first. Now it's November 1st. Funny thing is, that since the law did not pass the first of three required parliamentary readings, it most likely will never come into effect; right now, it hasn't even been signed by the president. If it will ever come into force, you can expect a mass legal dispute. Long story short: we got this one under control.

Just like in any other european country, this lay-off is most certainly illegal and can be appealed by the email's author. That's what labor law is there for.

Of course people got sacked for expressing opposing opinions long before the internet existed. French roots of labor law and freedom of speech date back to the revolution in 1789, UK workers have already fought for those in the 16th century, in Germany those rights have existed before the third reich since the 1849 revolution.

This is not really a "your rights online" article, but should be tagged "your rights in capitalism" - you have them, so use them.