Government surveillance of personal computers would violate the individual right to privacy, Germany’s highest court said Wednesday, in a ruling that German investigators say will restrict their ability to pursue terrorists.

The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe said in a precedent-setting decision that notes stored or exchanged on a personal computer were effectively covered under principles of the Constitution that enshrine the right to personal privacy.

“Collecting such details directly encroaches on a citizen’s rights, given that fear of being observed” could prevent “unselfconscious personal communication,” the presiding judge, Hans-Jurgen Papier, said in his ruling.

While the ruling directly addressed a state law that had widely permitted the authorities to monitor criminal suspects’ personal computer use, it plus set out the ground rules for a hotly disputed federal law governing secret services’ ability to use virus-like software to monitor terrorism suspects’ online activity.

“Given the gravity of the intrusion,” Papier said, “the secret infiltration of an IT system

in such a way that use of the system and its details can be searched can only be constitutionally allowed whether clear evidence of a concrete threat to a prominent object of legal protection exists.”

The authorities would be allowed to spy on suspects’ computers using virus software in exceptional cases, according to the ruling.

But any such action must have the approval of a judge.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schuble welcomed the ruling, saying his ministry would refer to the clause allowing surveillance in specific cases in preparing new legislation to guide Germany’s national intelligence services. A previous proposal to use the technology to fight terrorism and investigate a range of crimes met with sharp criticism from civil rights groups and opposition politicians.

“We expect that with a decision from the court we’ll get a wider acceptance of the law than when it was just the interior minister saying the…

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