Germany to let its intel agencies take active defensive measures

The German Cabinet has approved expanded powers for the country's intelligence agencies in the face of evidence of low-level hybrid attacks, including the option of actively intervening in clearly defined cases.

The Cabinet approved a draft law on Wednesday that will, for example, allow the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) to manipulate the IT infrastructure of a foreign power during an ongoing cyberattack or disinformation campaign.

This expansion of powers will be accompanied by tighter scrutiny of the intelligence services' work, including a limit on monitoring an organization as a suspected extremist group to a maximum of five years, according to the plans. An extension will require Interior Ministry approval.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party has been monitored by the domestic intelligence service as a suspected extremist organization since February 2021, and in May last year, the party's classification at the federal level was upgraded to "confirmed far-right extremist." This is under review by the courts.

The intelligence services and their respective supervisory authorities - the Federal Interior Ministry and the Federal Chancellery - point out that the new powers represent a major change. At the same time, however, they emphasize that, from a legal perspective, the reform merely brings Germany up to the level of other European services in certain areas.

The draft law was published in early July. Reforms address issues such as comparing biometric data with information from the internet and the power to conduct online searches - a covert measure in which access is gained to a device to search the data stored on it.

The reform has been planned for some time, but the threat from spying and sabotage - particularly from Russia - is believed to have increased, while the number of politically motivated crimes is also rising.