Overview
- The government’s amended draft would let the foreign spy service (BND) carry out ‘hackbacks’, manipulate hardware and secretly enter private homes for operations, and let the domestic security agency (BfV) use covert measures against individuals and property.
- Union and SPD amendments expanded the bill to allow the BfV to monitor organized crime and to limit cooperation with specific state offices, shifting tasks that have traditionally been the police’s responsibility.
- FDP and Green lawmakers say the changes erase the legal wall between intelligence work and policing, warn of algorithmic profiling without clear standards, and demand stronger parliamentary and judicial oversight.
- Criticism has hardened after the October arrest of former BND chief August Hanning on accusations of selling secrets and the AfD win in Saxony‑Anhalt, which opponents say raises risks to state‑level reliability.
- If passed, the law would mark a major shift in Germany’s intelligence model by expanding proactive and intrusive tools, raising immediate questions about who decides targets, how safeguards will be enforced, and what rights citizens will retain.