(de-news.net) – Germany’s government has agreed to overhaul intelligence laws, expanding the BND and BfV’s powers to collect data and conduct operations against threats including sabotage and cyberattacks. Supporters cite a deteriorating security environment and the need to match allied capabilities, while the Greens and civil liberties advocates warn that stronger powers require substantially tighter oversight and constitutional safeguards.
The German Government has agreed to a comprehensive reform of the country’s intelligence laws that would significantly expand the powers of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) to collect and retain data. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) and Chancellery Minister Nina Warken (CDU) said Wednesday that the legislation would also strengthen the agencies’ ability to counter threats such as sabotage and cyberattacks, including through offensive cyber operations.
Warken argued that Germany’s intelligence capabilities had fallen behind those of numerous European allies, leaving the country too dependent on intelligence provided by foreign partners. The reform, she said, would establish the legal basis for stronger and better-equipped services capable of responding to a deteriorating security environment at home and abroad. She pointed to growing foreign influence, sabotage and other forms of hybrid pressure directed at Germany’s constitutional order and democratic society, describing the package, before the Cabinet decision had taken place, as the most significant overhaul of intelligence law since the agencies were established.
Dobrindt characterized the legislation as the beginning of a new phase for Germany’s intelligence services. He argued that the country needed agencies with powers and capabilities comparable to those of its international partners because it was confronting serious and continuing challenges associated with hybrid warfare. The reform is therefore intended to bring the legal framework governing intelligence operations into closer alignment with what the government considers a substantially changed threat environment.
Calls grow for tighter independent oversight
The Greens had previously called for considerably stronger oversight while expressing conditional support for expanding intelligence capabilities. Konstantin von Notz, deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Oversight Panel, said that the risks posed by authoritarian states made modern intelligence powers that complied with constitutional requirements necessary. In his view, the BND’s capabilities could be strengthened, but any such expansion would have to be accompanied by tighter parliamentary supervision and clear limits grounded in constitutional law.
Von Notz nevertheless criticized the government’s proposals for failing to provide sufficient safeguards and oversight, particularly in the provisions concerning the BfV. He called for further changes during the legislative process, while welcoming some initial revisions, including the removal of a proposed requirement that the Federal Office for Information Security report vulnerabilities. Without additional safeguards, he warned, the package could undermine both the agencies’ legal certainty and public confidence in their activities.
The Society for Civil Rights, or GFF, took a much more critical position, arguing that the reform would weaken independent oversight while substantially broadening the intelligence services’ powers. GFF policy director Kai Dittmann warned that expanded use of state-sponsored spyware, artificial intelligence-based analysis, access to privately operated security cameras and offensive cyber operations could create significant risks for fundamental rights. At the same time, he argued, the legal safeguards accompanying those powers remained unclear or insufficient.
The organization also warned that the legislation could further erode the institutional distinction between police and intelligence services. In its assessment, weakening federal data-protection oversight without providing the Independent Control Council with adequate personnel and technical resources could create a substantial gap in accountability. Dittmann therefore called for a fundamental revision of the draft, including the removal of overly broad operational powers and the creation of effective, technically capable independent oversight.
