Secret service reform in the Bundestag: How far does Dobrindt's snooping offensive go?

The threat situation is quite clear: It was exactly three weeks ago that Germany officially blamed Russia for a drone loaded with explosives at Leipzig Airport. It almost blew up a Ukrainian cargo plane at the beginning of August. And just this Monday it became known that investigators also found explosives near the Bundeswehr air base in Wunstorf in Lower Saxony. In the Leipzig case, the authorities are certain that Russian secret services are behind it, but in Wunstorf there is at least a lot to suggest that.

In order to defend itself against such attacks, the federal government is planning to give the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) extensive new powers. But the plans go so far that there is also clear criticism. On Thursday, the Bundestag will deal with the new draft laws for the first time.

The declared aim of the reform is to turn the intelligence services BND and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution into full-fledged secret services. This means: In the future, both organizations will also have much more comprehensive monitoring options, for example through AI-supported evaluation of photos or mass access to internet data. Above all, the services should be allowed to intervene actively themselves for the first time.

With the BND, which is largely limited to foreign countries, this is still relatively unproblematic. With the exception of the Left Party, the democratic parties agree that robust action is needed to ward off the threat from Russia. In addition to hacker attacks, this is also said to involve sabotage operations, for example by manipulating enemy arms factories so that the weapons fail in combat. However, clear limits remain: although BND agents should be allowed to carry weapons abroad, they are still prohibited from using lethal force.

The reform of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) is much more controversial. On the one hand, this has to do with the fact that the planned active operations at the BfV as a domestic secret service will mostly be directed against German citizens. Specifically, secret service agents should be allowed to secretly enter apartments. Unlike police interventions, those affected do not have to be informed subsequently, and access to files cannot be claimed later. This makes the planned actions particularly serious encroachments on fundamental rights.

For historical reasons, surgical interventions have so far been reserved for the police. During National Socialism, the Gestapo combined the areas of responsibility of the intelligence services and police in one authority and thus became a central actor in the Nazi policy of extermination. The Stasi in the GDR is also often cited as a warning example of a secret police. The left-wing deputy group leader Clara Bünger says: “Anyone who gives intelligence services operational intervention rights, sabotage powers and state hackbacks is planning a new German secret police.”

Other critics fear above all that the reform threatens to create a chaos of authority within the security apparatus if the police and secret services are to take on the same tasks. The Green Party's deputy parliamentary group leader Konstantin von Notz told the taz that the idea of ​​secret apartment searches without the obligation to inform those affected was "excessive and inflammatory", and that it would "foreseeably lead to chaos" if the Office for the Protection of the Constitution competes with the police. This threatens the entire project: “By linking the urgently needed BND reform with the questionable secret service plans for the BfV, the federal government is making the project extremely vulnerable.”

And then there is the question of how the secret services, with their massively expanded powers, can still be controlled. The draft law envisages consolidating several existing control bodies into the Independent Control Council (UK Council). According to the plans, the Federal Data Protection Commissioner, who was previously also responsible for monitoring, will be left out in the future. Another point of criticism: The UK Council has so far been dominated by lawyers.

Von Notz now told the taz: “The UK Council needs more technical expertise and a more critical culture of discussion among the members, who have so far mainly been recruited from BGH judges.” The Left Bünger goes even further: “The so-called Independent Control Council will remain a toothless, understaffed pseudo-institution.”