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Wednesday 21 October 2020
Messaging services allow secure communication, for the benefit of constitutional enemies and terrorists. In order to read the encrypted messages, the secret services have to smuggle themselves into the device. The federal government wants this to be possible for them, to the horror of the FDP.
This Wednesday, the cabinet is discussing new powers for the secret services to monitor communications through WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging services. As the dpa news agency learned, the protection of the constitution, the Federal Intelligence Service and the military armored service (MAD) should not only be able to eavesdrop on ongoing conversations via messaging, but also be able to read messages. sent via courier.
The prerequisite for the so-called telecommunications monitoring of origin (TKÜ) is, in any case, a corresponding order. To improve the control of such measures, according to the draft, the number of members of the G10 commission of the Bundestag in charge of their approval will be increased. That was important to the SPD. In addition, the Commission must have a technical advisor.
The FDP criticized the project. “The fact that the intelligence services can now also use the state Trojan is like a sale of civil rights. It is very surprising that Federal Justice Minister Lambrecht, as Minister of Constitution, takes this step towards the transparent citizen as a ideal of conservative security policy, “said FDP Parliamentary Group Leader Stephan Thomae. “The monitoring of encrypted communication, that is, the TKÜ font, is the little brother of online searches and also represents a massive violation of fundamental rights.” Both would not have “lost anything” with the secret services operating before the danger.
Consequences of right-wing terrorist attacks
The Union, however, had long insisted on the regulation. “It is good and important that the amendment to the Constitutional Protection Law is finally on the way,” said his national political group spokesman Mathias Middelberg. Only in this way can the national secret service continue to exercise its role as an early warning system in the digital age.
The draft of the Federal Ministry of the Interior also provides for a greater exchange of information between the MAD and the constitutional protection authorities. Barriers to people watching will also be lowered by protecting the constitution. Therefore, the Federal Government is drawing conclusions from the far-right terrorist attacks in Halle and Hanau. Both attacks were perpetrated by perpetrators who, according to previous knowledge, did not belong to any group.
According to a SWR survey, citizens’ confidence in the protection of the constitution is only average or below average. Fifty-one percent of the 1004 people surveyed by Infratest-Dimap declared that they had great or great confidence in the national intelligence service, while only 38 percent of the Federal Intelligence Service operating abroad did. In contrast, 43 and 49 percent, respectively, stated they had little or no confidence in these services, by far the strongest supporters of the AfD, but to a lesser extent also on the left.
