Intelligence Reform: A New Age of Surveillance

The black-red federal government wants to turn the German intelligence services into “real secret services,” and both Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) made no secret of this. The criticism of the plans has so far focused mainly on the “operational powers” ​​that the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) are to be given for the first time: hacking, sabotaging, searching. The planned expansion of monitoring options is receiving significantly less attention.

Specifically, the BND and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution should in future be allowed to comprehensively search suspects' devices or access all surveillance cameras in Germany - including private ones. It is also planned that the services will search the Internet with AI programs and automatically compare existing data on the network. This particularly concerns photos that are compared with social media profiles in order to identify people.

However, it is unclear whether the services should also be allowed to purchase data sets that are traded illegally on the Internet. This is usually data that is collected by advertising trackers on websites and ultimately ends up on the black market via a detour. US intelligence agencies routinely use such data sets. This option is not even mentioned in the legal texts of the intelligence service reform, which in practice could give the authorities a great deal of freedom of action.

But it's not just the secret services that the federal government is upgrading in terms of surveillance. In September, the Union and SPD also passed a new federal police law in the Bundestag that also gives this authority new surveillance options. This includes, among other things, cell phone tracking, monitoring of messenger services and automatic real-time facial recognition at train stations.

The federal government justifies the expansion of the powers of the security authorities with a changed security situation, for example due to extremism, terrorism and the hybrid threat from Russia. At the beginning of September, attacks by a suspected left-wing extremist lone perpetrator on the German power grid alarmed the authorities. The most likely Russian drone attack on a Ukrainian cargo plane at Leipzig/Halle Airport also raised questions about the authorities' competence.

Critics are now accusing the federal government of overstepping the mark with its secret service reform. The Left and the Greens sometimes express horror at the new surveillance options. The Left's domestic policy spokeswoman, Clara Bünger, accuses Dobrindt of carrying out an “authoritarian state restructuring” and pushing it forward “ruthlessly”.

The "greatest tragedy" of the reforms: "He creates an uncontrollable state apparatus, while the AfD becomes stronger from election to election. He provides the AfD with this apparatus ready to use." Bünger fears: “In the worst case scenario, the AfD will then have all the means at its disposal to pursue political opponents using police means and to advance their racist agenda with violence.”

The vice-chairman of the Green parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Konstantin von Notz, considers the reforms to be “urgently necessary to ward off dangers from within and outside”. But the AfD is one of these dangers, he tells the taz. “We also see that the AfD is using these reforms to further destroy trust in the rule of law.” Dobrindt “legislatively oversteps the mark” and loses sight of civil liberties. This makes it too easy for the AfD.

Especially since the secret service reform is also intended to abolish rules that previously exempted certain professional groups from surveillance. For example, doctors or psychotherapists. It is at least conceivable that medical or therapeutic records will be accessible to patients in the future and even the therapy conversations will be listened to.

Almost 70,000 people had signed a petition by October 26th demanding that doctors and psychotherapists be given equal protection. “Patients must be able to trust that what they reveal in psychotherapy is particularly protected,” say the federal chairmen of the German Psychotherapists Association.

Reporters could also be monitored more easily in the future. The NGO Reporters Without Borders criticizes that the mere possibility of surveillance is enough “to deter informants from working with the press.”

After all, approval must still be given in advance as to whether someone can be monitored. So far, the BND and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution have been controlled by the G10 Commission. The G10 Commission is supposed to check the admissibility in advance and gives the intelligence service permission to monitor a person for a limited period of time. However, the committee is to be discontinued and the tasks are to be pooled in the Independent Control Council (UKRat). The Chancellery justifies this with “more effective control structures and more targeted controls”.

In the opposition, however, there are fears that control will be weakened. “The sole purpose of the proposal is to make control systematically impossible and to give the services a completely free hand,” Bünger accuses the federal government.