What I’m referring to by “government” is the executive branch. This might be a difference in languages and/or political systems, but that’s what is commonly referred to in Germany by “government”. This excludes the judiciary branch and therefore the courts.
The government didn’t decide that though, courts do. As long as that still holds, that’s exactly how democracies are not destroyed, isnt it? I think, German law enforcement may be overstepping their boundaries in these cases and for example in the case of Andy Grote mentioned in the article, the actions taken were actually ruled to have been illegal (in court). Honestly seems more like a democracy doing democracy things.
Similar experience for me, also switched from iPhone 15 to FP5 recently and am very happy with it. I even got the e/os/ version. The switch was quite the effort but you’d have that with any other android as well coming from Apple. So far it has not felt like a downgrade at all, although I would not consider myself a “power user” when it comes to phones.