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Secret service reform: “Unconstitutional and dangerous”
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The Humanist Union is alarmed by the planned upgrade of the secret services. She analyzes the reform package and demands that it be rejected.
The Humanist Union (HU) has onehttps://www.humanistische-union.de/thema/die-menschen-im-land-behaben-s...analysisto the planned onehttps://netzpolitik.org/2026/geheimdienstreform-zeitenwende-fuer-spione/...the powers of the secret servicespresented. Thehttps://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/gesetzigungverfahren/DE/OESI2/nachr...plans, to allow the BND and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution to carry out far more automated and cross-agency secret data analyzes in the future and to transform them into operational secret services. The draft was approved by the cabinet in August.
The previously practiced separation between secret services that monitor comprehensively but do not intervene themselves and the police, which act in contrast to this, is disappearing with the reform ideas: the secret authorities no longer only collect masses of data, but are then also able to influence what is being observed. The proposed law is intended to allow the BND to carry out active hacking (“hackbacks”) for the first time and to allow both the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the BND to access recordings from private and public video surveillance systems as well as extensive biometric comparisons. In addition, the draft would re-regulate the control of the secret services and further restrict the rights of those affected.
They are extremely critical of all previously known statements on the planned massive expansion of the powers of both secret services. The HU also hardly gives a damn about the legislative ideas.
From the HU's point of view, the "policing" of the secret services and the planned expansion of some of the powers of the foreign intelligence service BND into the country "fundamentally question the security structure". It is a “paradigm shift”. In addition, it is simply “unconstitutional” if the secret authorities are now “given operational powers, but have significantly lower thresholds for intervention in surveillance than the police.”
The requirement of separation is being undermined and the responsibilities of the police authorities and secret services are “generally called into question”. The HU considers this not only to be unconstitutional, but also “dangerous”.
The HU also criticizes the expansion of surveillance powers and automated analyzes: “Video surveillance and the biometric data comparison of the collected images are particularly excessive, disproportionate and unconstitutional.”
https://netzpolitik.org/2026/geheimdienstreform-geschichtsvergessen-und-...and dangerous
“Professional secrecy overturned”
The HU also sees the 732-page draft as threatening professional secrecy, client protection, source protection, freedom of the press and editorial secrecy. Accordingly, for example, thehttps://netzpolitik.org/2026/die-geheimdienstreform-untergraebt-das-vert...by doctors or other medical professionalsno longer be absolutely protected. Also athttps://netzpolitik.org/2026/geheimdienstreform-der-schutz-von-journalis...The secret people should be allowed to listen in more.
It is “completely incomprehensible” why numerous professional secrecy professions are not even listed in the draft, writes the HU. She demands that “all professions which, according to the Code of Criminal Procedure, are entitled to professional secrecy (and thus the right to refuse to witness)” should also be guaranteed this right by the BND.
The proposed regulations for the protection of the constitution also do not provide enough protection for journalists subject to professional secrecy, especially if they are indirectly recorded as third parties. In effect, “professional secrecy has been overturned,” according to the HU. The planned restrictions on confidentiality protection for lawyers are also “completely disproportionate”.
Shifting control
The new ideas for reviewing secret service practices are also unacceptable to the HU. She criticizes various “control gaps” in the draft and overall inadequate control.
The HU is critical of the shift in control to the Independent Control Council (UKRat). This UK Council is a “court-like control council” made up of six independent lawyers who, together with a staff, are supposed to examine the legality of secret service orders in advance, but behind closed doors. Such orders can, for example, force providers to transmit communication content. At timeshttps://netzpolitik.org/2026/geheimdienstkontrolle-kontrolle-darf-nicht-...the BND allows inspectionin such arrangements.
Parliamentary supervision has so far been carried out by the G10 Commission; the supervisory authority is the Federal Data Protection Commissioner (BfDI). The G10 Commission should be abolished. The BfDI and its specialist department would also lose their responsibility when the draft law comes into force. Their expertise is based not only on legal assessments, but also on “technical and data protection expertise”. This will be “largely ignored” in the draft, according to the HU. The “cross-agency overall view” that only the BfDI has would be lost.
The lack of control optionshttps://netzpolitik.org/2026/geheimdienstreform-preparation-fuer-den-au...political crisesare also criticized. This concerns situations in which the Bundestag experiences a point of tensionhttps://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_80a.html">nachArticle 80a of the Basic Lawwould exclaim. This is not yet a military defense case that would call the Bundeswehr into action and call on the population to defend their country. But a case of tension would be a serious foreign policy crisis.
The HU considers the fact that in such cases there is no longer any requirement for logging to be “particularly alarming”. Subsequent control would then hardly be conceivable. “Especially in the case of clandestine interventions, checking their legality afterwards can be made considerably more difficult or impossible.”
“Further step towards a surveillance state”
The federal budget includes an increase in the BND budget for 2027https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldeen-1205354">onaround 1.85 billion euros are planned. The budget is increasing significantly; the Bundestag still has to decide on the powers.
From the HU's perspective, the secret service reform is a “further step towards a surveillance state” with clear deficits in the control of practices and the rights of those affected. In any case, secret services are hardly controllable due to their nature. "But not strengthening the few options for partial control in line with the increase in the services' competencies would speak for secret services whose leash is becoming so long that it is questionable to what extent they contribute to protecting democracy and the rule of law."
The HU analysis by Carola Otte and Philip Dingeldey ends with a clear demand: “The reform package that threatens the freedom of people on German soil should therefore be rejected.” The new regulation is also necessary by the end of the year in order to meet the requirements of the Federal Constitutional Court. But it would be “enough to reform the points raised by the Federal Constitutional Court instead of introducing a paradigm shift in surveillance and violence.”
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