After a series of intelligence failures, chief among them the suspicions discovered in recent weeks against the head of the national cyber system who allegedly acted as an agent for Russia, it was decided in Germany to examine and change the regulation of the operation of the country’s intelligence agencies.
The Federal Control Commission (PKGR) convened this week to decide on a series of new reforms, in order to enable better control over the way the Federal Intelligence Agency (BND), the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BFV) and the Military Intelligence (BAMAD) operate.
central intelligence agency
In the early 2000s, Germany’s intelligence services underwent a real transformation, and the BND became the central intelligence body, the one responsible for gathering outside and inside Germany’s borders, including gathering military intelligence.
The military intelligence body became a relatively small body, responsible for collection and tactical research only.
The committee previously determined the legal operational limits of intelligence gathering, with an emphasis on cyber attack operations, signal intelligence gathering (Signet), intelligence cooperation with foreign intelligence partners, and the operation of agents on behalf of Germany in other countries.
The committee established a control body, known as The UK Council, headed by a retired judge, Joseph Koch, who spent most of his years as a judge in the Supreme Court and the Court of Justice of Germany. Along with him, six other judges work in the control body.
The control body will investigate the actions of German intelligence in assessing the failure to leave Afghanistan, the intelligence’s failures in locating Russian agents operating in Germany, as well as the issue of collecting private information on the country’s residents and the European Union. There, according to the committee’s assessment, the BND allegedly committed violations of individual freedom and privacy.
Close supervision
The control body will be allowed full access to all the information of the BND, a shocking event by all accounts for the intelligence organization. He is expected to examine about 600 different cases in which electronic surveillance (in all its configurations) was carried out on German citizens, on the decision-making and approval process, as well as on counter-espionage operations carried out by the BND inside Germany.
The body’s action will likely produce a major upheaval in the German intelligence agency, which during Chancellor Merkel’s time enjoyed relative freedom of action. The progressive left-wing government of the current chancellor is willing to accept less freedom of action for the intelligence organization, which in its estimation violates human rights and privacy extensively in the country.
The control body received a mandate from the federal committee to build a new control mechanism, under parliamentary control, which will create the intelligence collection operations by the BND, and will approve any intelligence collection operation whatsoever.
This step is expected to cause the BND to significantly curtail its collection operations, and will undoubtedly hamper its abilities to monitor espionage and terrorist activities in the country.
political changes
This is not the first time that the BND is under the sword of reforms. In 2016, the organization underwent a comprehensive reform, under sharp public criticism. These followed the sensational revelations of the Snowden reports, which indicated that the American intelligence organization, the NSA, spied on and followed senior officials in Germany and other security organizations.
Snowden pointed out that the BND was vulnerable to American espionage efforts, which obtained highly sensitive intelligence material from it (including sensitive information from German leaders).
The 2016 reform allowed the BND to do almost anything, including spying on EU countries. To cooperate and sensitive information with the American intelligence and collect information about the citizens of the country, whenever the BND considered that the collection of the information is essential for the security of the country and the prevention of acts of terrorism and espionage. This reform made the organization possess extensive power and authority.
At the end of 2021 towards the end of her term, Merkel expanded the authority of the organization in order to allow it to better deal with cyber attacks and Russian human intelligence operating in the country.
Olaf Schulz, Chancellor of Germany, unlike his predecessor, wants to reduce the BND’s scope of action and create for himself full control over its operations.
Germany is currently facing many threats, on the one hand Russia, which in recent weeks has again increased the intensity of its fighting in Ukraine and threatens NATO and the countries of the region. On the other hand, the terrorist threats from Islamic terrorist cells.
The broad supervision that is based on the BND may, on the one hand, prevent unnecessary damage to individual freedom and privacy, but on the other hand, it will significantly harm the organization’s ability to prevent terrorism and espionage in the country.