The Bundestag votes this Friday on a fundamental reorganisation of the German intelligence services. The BND and the domestic intelligence service are thereby to receive far more powers than before – they are to no longer merely collect information but also be allowed to take action themselves. According to ad-hoc-news.de, the vote is to take place on Friday, 13 November, at nine o’clock.
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) speaks of a “century work” and wants to turn the services into “real intelligence services”, as he says according to tagesschau.de. The Left party, by contrast, calls the project a “monster that can summon ghosts we will probably never get rid of again” – as the security politician Clara Bünger describes it to the ARD capital studio.
What the BND will be allowed to do in future
The Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is responsible for foreign affairs. Until now it was mainly allowed to gather information. Under the plans, in the event of imminent dangers to Germany it is to be allowed to penetrate the IT systems of drone factories or chemical weapons laboratories and sabotage them, as the Berliner Morgenpost and Bayerischer Rundfunk report. “Hacking back” in cyber attacks and the manipulation of goods deliveries, for example through smuggled faulty components, are also envisaged. BR quotes an expert who calls the changes for the BND “a real revolution”.
For the domestic intelligence service, many experts view the innovations more critically, because its powers could overlap with those of the police. In the event of an “urgent danger to particularly weighty legal interests” – such as an imminent terrorist attack – it is to be allowed, according to the draft law, “without the knowledge of the person concerned, to collect and record personal data from a dwelling by technical means”, as the Berliner Morgenpost quotes. Until now the dwelling was regarded as a taboo zone for the services. The domestic intelligence service is also to be allowed to manipulate objects or data and to exchange explosives in order to prevent attacks.
Criticism of the separation principle
The Left party sees a breach of a taboo, because the separation between police and intelligence services – a lesson from the Nazi era – is being softened. Bünger told the ARD capital studio that the intelligence service was getting “executive powers” and “police powers”. The AfD parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel announced: “What is being done here is an attack on the German rule of law. And of course we will vote against it.” The AfD interior politician Christian Wirth told the Berliner Morgenpost that the police must “not be given intelligence tasks” and intelligence services must not “do police work”.
The Greens assess the reform in a differentiated way: they support the rules for the BND, but reject those for the domestic intelligence service in central points. The security politician Konstantin von Notz criticises, according to tagesschau.de, that the demarcation from police responsibility remains blurred, and that “transparency and legal protection for those affected” are also insufficient. In a motion by the parliamentary group, according to the Berliner Morgenpost, it says that for the first time the domestic service would be authorised “to carry out permanently secret interventions in freedom of behaviour and property”; those affected would be deprived of “every possibility” of defending themselves against it.
The Mainz law professor Matthias Bäcker criticises, according to BR, that the new competences are not limited to acute cases but reach much further. In addition, the domestic intelligence service need not inform those affected about measures, so that they cannot take legal action against them. The lawyer Franziska Görlitz of the “Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte e.V.” points to fr.de to a “clear increase in powers” and to a possible deterrent effect of expanded surveillance on political engagement and journalism.
Better protection for doctors and therapists
Shortly before the vote, the interior committee changed the draft. According to ad-hoc-news.de, data entrusted to doctors, dentists, psychotherapists, pharmacists and midwives in their professional capacity is now expressly protected in Paragraph 22 of the BND Act. The targeted obtaining of confidential data from a treatment situation is prohibited to the services. The president of the German Medical Association, Klaus Reinhardt, called the protection an important signal, but demanded that it must not remain limited to the BND but must also apply to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and other security authorities.
The government points to the threat situation: sabotage on railway lines, cyber attacks on hospitals and administrations, espionage in authorities and companies, disinformation campaigns, plus explosive drones at airports. Dobrindt said according to tagesschau.de that one must arm oneself against this. At the same time the coalition stresses that control is also growing: the Independent Control Council is being expanded in personnel and technical terms and reviews intervention-intensive measures in advance, the SPD politician Sonja Eichwede told the Berliner Morgenpost.
According to ad-hoc-news.de, the legislative package comprises almost 700 pages as an article law, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung a good 600 pages; fr.de reports three new laws and 17 others that are being adapted. Part of the work is postponed to the coming year. Because the separation principle is not in the Basic Law but was central to the case law of the Federal Constitutional Court, critics expect lawsuits in Karlsruhe. It is likely to be years before a decision – for that long the laws would probably apply.
