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Secret service reform: BND scandal at an inopportune time
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The legal restructuring of the secret services will soon be passed through the Bundestag. However, better control of the secret services is not offset by the massive expansion of powers. However, this has not only been urgently needed since the scandal involving ex-BND boss Hanning.
That was a bombshell that hit political Berlin yesterday. In the morning they were tickinghttps://www.generalbundesanwalt.de/SharedDocs/Press Releases/DE/2026...urfeand the arrest of former BND President August Hanning across all channels, including in the international press. Hanning was not only head of the BND when the death pilots from Hamburg, who were well known to the German secret services, piloted the hijacked planes into the skyscrapers in New York. He and the then Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) then also became the architects of the expansion of surveillance laws after 9/11, which were called “anti-terror laws” and which still apply today.
The current chairman of the secret service, which controls the secret services but meets in secrethttps://www.bundestag.de/ausschuesse/weitere_gremien/parlamentarisches-k...control committee(PKGr), Marc Henrichmann (CDU), saidhttps://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/interview-pkgr-henrichmann...the topics of the day, Hanning's case would have “shaken the foundations”. Nobody could have even imagined something like this if the allegations were substantiated. He dutifully demanded “complete clarification.”
As with previous BND scandals, it will probably stay that way. No one in the PKGr, which is already discredited as toothless, has the idea of putting serious limits on what the BND does.
The non-party top official Hanning was considered an agitator. After serving for seven years as BND president, he also worked as a civil servant state secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior and was responsible for the then hotly contested BKA law, which also included the use of state trojans. He was a frequent guest in the PKGr, as well as in the various investigative committees of the Bundestag, which repeatedly tried to clear up the BND's scandals. Hanning was notorious for his professional memory gaps and thathttps://www.stern.de/politik/ausland/geheimdienste-ausser-kontrolle-3597...Concealment of information. Evenhttps://netzpolitik.org/2017/netzpolitik-podcast-136-mit-hans-christian-...Breach of lawand his long-time parliamentary controller Hans-Christian Ströbele (Greens) accused him and the BND of excessive insistence on secrecy. Secrecy is not a “license to lie,” he told Hanning at the time. Ströbele received a reprimand from the committee chairman, but the ex-BND boss smiled away the accusation.
The security policy hardliner Hanning, who has also been a suspect in crimeshttps://taz.de/innen-Staatssekretaer-ueber-Ueberwachung/!5166325/">Bugstuck it under the bedwanted, is now suspected of being a criminal himself. He is accused of suspected treasonous spying, spying on state secrets, attempted treason and espionage.
At the same time, investigations are underway against Hanning and another retired officer in the case of Christina Block and a child abduction. A commissioned Israeli company and the two ex-officials are accused of planning to take the child's father and his family law lawyer with themhttps://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/hamburg/fall-block-razzia-gegen-ex-bnd-ch...to discredit pedophilia allegations. Among other things, a hard drive was procured by the Israeli company in September 2023https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/kritikitaet/christina-block-e...Over 500 images of child pornography and 64 videos were placed on the child's father's residential property. These investigations have probably also substantiated the current allegations.
Silvering knowledge worthy of protection
Hanning's career as a civil servant ended in 2009 when Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU), who had just taken office, dismissed him without notice and without an orderly handover to a successorhttps://www.spiegel.de/politik/atmosphaerische-stoerungen-a-3ff33f18-000...temporarily retired. The chemistry between the two is said not to have been right.
But Hanning remained in demand as an intelligence expert in the public debate and moved forwardhttps://web.archive.org/web/20100927081518/http://www.bundesdruckerei.de...December 2009joined the Bundesdruckerei supervisory board and began a consulting career. He works in several companies, including thehttps://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/hans-georg-maassen-und-august-h...AG, runs the company together with his wifehttps://www.northdata.de/HanningConsult%20GmbH,%20Nordwalde/Amtsgericht%..., becamehttps://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/koerperkameras-fuer-bundespolizisten-body...and tried to do business in his former direct field of work, such as arranging a body camera deal with the federal police for Motorola.
A second intelligence chief was involved at Pluteos AG: Hans-Georg Maaßen, the former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. He advised Pluteos how to do thisstarat that timehttps://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/hans-georg-maassen-und-august-h...acted. The company resided comfortably in Lucerne, Switzerland.
The fact that a secret service chief sells his particularly sensitive knowledge is not an isolated case in Germany. It is also not punishable, although it is ethically questionable. That the ex-public servant Hanninghttps://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/plus234616544/Ex-BND-Chef-August...Financial transactionsonehttps://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/august-hanning-bankenpleite-u...Bank involvedshould have been and apparently - if the allegations are true - extremely sensitive information came to him long years after his term in office and according to thePress release from the Federal Prosecutor Generalcould possibly have penetrated at least two secret services, would not only be punishable. At the same time, it shows that top personnel from the secret world can apparently use the inherent lack of transparency and control for their own purposes for years without being noticed.
Scandal at an inopportune time
Every BND scandal comes at an inopportune time for the secret service, including this time. The control of the secret services is currently being significantly restructured, the separation requirement is being weakened and technical surveillance measures are being expanded. That makes sensehttps://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/gesetzlementverfahren/DE/Downloads/k...(pdf) from July, which is intended to give both the Federal Intelligence Service and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution significantly more powers.
Both are likely to hack even more in the future and carry out automated mass data analysis, also with the help of AI and also with particularly sensitive biometric data. In addition, there is the massive telecommunications evaluation by the BND, which is now likely to store data even longer and more extensively.
https://netzpolitik.org/2026/massenueberwachung-und-hacking-der-bnd-soll...BND should get new, powerful instruments
According to the draft, control of the BND should be transferred more to the Independent Control Council (UKRat). This quasi-judicial UK Council consists of nine independent lawyers with a staff that examines behind closed doors. The Humanist Unionhttps://netzpolitik.org/2026/geheimdienstreform-verfassungsgegen-und-ge...“control gaps”in the design and overall inadequate control. The previous onehttps://netzpolitik.org/2026/geheimdienstkontrolle-kontrolle-darf-nicht-...deficientIn any case, control is not improved.
So far, the Federal Data Protection Commissioner (BfDI) and his specialist department have also checked the BND. This independent control is intended to compensate for a structural deficit in legal protection. Because of the extensive lack of transparency and secrecy in the secret service, information and notification obligations for those affected by surveillance measures are hardly enforceable or do not even exist. There is therefore hardly any individual legal protection. This control authority by the BfDI as the only independent data protection supervisory authority should now no longer apply.
The secrets don't exactly like control. Hanning complained in an alarmist post titledhttps://www.bild.de/politik/inland/politik-inland/bnd-debatte-gastbeitra...in Karlsruhe!(Image) already after the last expansion of the BND's powers, which was heard at the Federal Constitutional Court in 2020, about the supposedly increasingly tight legal restrictions. This is dangerous because if there were stricter controls, the major foreign intelligence partners would turn off the data tap. However, the Supreme Court remained ignorant of the instructionsPictureunimpressed.
The current legal restructuring is based on the requirements of the Federal Constitutional Court, which must once again be used for a simultaneous expansion. The court ordered, among other things, full-time and quasi-judicial control of the BND. The deadline for the improvements is the end of the year. However, there has been another one since March 2025https://www.reporter-ohne-borne.de/artikel/pressemitrichtenen/26/besch...at the European Court of Human Rights against the current BND lawbefore.
The new Federal Chancellery Minister Nina Warken (CDU) called the conversion during the first reading in the Bundestaghttps://netzpolitik.org/2026/bundetagsdebatte-zur-geheimdienstreform-zw...Most recent amendment to the law governing our country's intelligence services. However, there are no plans to provide improved control alongside the significantly expanded powers. There is also no provision in it that states that the secret service chiefs are no longer allowed to sell their sensitive knowledge after the end of their service.
The arrest warrants against Hanning and his BND adlatus Manfred D. were issued today by an investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justicehttps://www.generalbundesanwalt.de/SharedDocs/Press Releases/DE/2026...Enforcement set.
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