Not long after proposing a comprehensive reform of Germany’s security policy, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Germany is pushing for yet another security reform, combining Germany’s intelligence agencies under one roof. At the moment, German runs the following intelligence agencies:

* Federal Intelligence Service (BND or Bundesnachrichtendienst)

• Military Security Service (MAD or Militärischer Abschirmdienst)
• Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV or Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz)
• State Offices for the Protection of the Constitution (LfV or Landesbehörden für Verfassungsschutz)
  

The BfV however, consists of 16 separate agencies, one for each German state, which are coordinated at its central office in Cologne. Therefore, coordination and information sharing and overlap are ongoing issues to be dealt with. The new proposal from the Ministry of the Interior headed by Chirol’s favorite German politician Woflgang Schäuble would

set up a new authority to combine its various eavesdropping operations in a purpose-built headquarters near Cologne, news organizations reported.The combined police and espionage center would be modeled on the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States or the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Britain.

[...] The interior ministry is keen to take away surveillance functions from the BND foreign intelligence service, and will argue that a new authority similar to the NSA could provide foreign and domestic eavesdropping from one spot. The system needs a revamp because modern communications are mainly digital and use sophisticated new encryption methods, creating a risk that police and intelligence services could be unable to crack the codes, according to Der Spiegel.

At the moment, the Federal Police (BPOL), Federal Criminal Police (BKA), the Federal Intelligence Service and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution all engage in surveillance activities. This plan would centralize the surveillance activities of each office into a new federal agency and “harmonize domestic and foreign communications surveillance.” Der Spiegel first reported on this Friday and there are still no other sources of information that I have found on the matter, neither in the German news nor on the German Interior Ministry’s website. Little public discussion has thus far taken place however it can be fairly easily predicted that this will come under criticism from the left as dangerous centralization and likely from the SPD for similar and political reasons.

I’ll keep readers posted with relevant developments and will have more soon on the proposed new security strategy for German. It is however, both interesting and exciting to watch Germany’s development in security policy and reform proposals of its military, security and intelligence agencies. Now if we could just get them to fight and kill...

More information can be found in German here.

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