Intelligence Agencies Worldwide ‘Seem to Have Gotten Out of Control’
In 2017 German Chancellor Angela Merkel testified on the 2015 espionage scandal involving Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND). However, according to the member of the German FDP party Jimmy Schulz, the German government failed to learn its lesson and make any conclusions from the spying scandal.
The politician noted that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was well prepared for her speech. However, her statements about “technical and organizational deficits” within the German intelligence were vague and didn’t shed any light on the issue.
“It seems that intelligence agencies all around the world got out of control. This applies not only to the NSA, but also, probably, to a number of other countries that clearly lost control of their services and are not aware of what they are doing. Such conclusion can be made following the statements of Mrs. Merkel, who said that she knew absolutely nothing about all these things,” the politician told Sputnik Germany.
During her testimony, the Chancellor admitted that in March 2015 she was surprised by the reports about the BND’s spying activities. She also pointed out that reforms have been implemented to make the intelligence agency more efficient and transparent.
However, Schulz believes that the activities of the intelligence should be controlled not only by the Chancellor’s Office, but also by the Parliament. According to the politician, the control should be exerted by a special parliamentary institution that will have unlimited access to BND documents as well as the opportunity to interview BND employees.
Moreover, the politician suggested that the problem of espionage could be dealt with on three levels: on a state level, by private enterprises and individuals themselves. For instance, Schulz noted that “enterprises should better watch over where and how their data can be intercepted.”
“They should be able to present a clear scheme (of their vulnerabilities) and take care of the security of its communications and its customers,” the politician stressed.
Jimmy Schulz
In 2015, media reports revealed an unprecedented espionage scandal in Europe, saying that the BND had systematically spied on its friends and allies worldwide. According to Spiegel Online magazine, in many cases the BND carried out this policy on its initiative and not at the request of US intelligence.
In 2018 it was decided in court that Germany’s spy agency can monitor major internet hubs if Berlin deems it necessary for strategic security interests, a federal court has ruled.
The Federal Administrative Court threw out a challenge by the world’s largest internet hub, the De-Cix exchange, against the tapping of its data flows by the BND foreign intelligence service.
The operator had argued the agency was breaking the law by capturing German domestic communications along with international data.
However, the court in the eastern city of Leipzig ruled that internet hubs “can be required by the federal interior ministry to assist with strategic communications surveillance by the BND”.
De-Cix said its Frankfurt hub is the world’s biggest internet exchange, bundling data flows from as far as China, Russia, the Middle East and Africa, which handles more than six terabytes per second at peak traffic.
The BND, a partner of the US National Security Agency (NSA), has placed so-called Y-piece prisms into its data-carrying fibre optic cables that give it an unfiltered and complete copy of the data flow.
Given the mass of daily phone calls, emails, chats, internet searches, streamed videos and other online communications, an effective fire-walling of purely German communications is unrealistic, activists argued.
Germany had reacted with outrage when information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that US agents were carrying out widespread tapping worldwide, including of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.
Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany where state spying on citizens was rampant, declared repeatedly that “spying among friends is not on” while acknowledging Germany’s reliance on the US in security matters. But to the great embarrassment of Germany, it later emerged that the BND helped the NSA spy on European allies.
In 2016 Berlin approved new measures, including greater oversight, to rein in the BND following the scandal.
yogaesoteric
February 8, 2018