Germany authorizes secret services to perform sabotage and cyber attacks

Othe german members today approved a comprehensive reformulation of the country's information services, granting new powers of surveillance and authorisation to retaliate hostile service operations rather than merely collecting information.

The Bundestag, the lower chamber of the German parliament, approved the bill allowing, among other things, clandestine operations – such as acts of sabotage or cyber attacks – a text debated in the framework of a growing Russian threat, according to Berlin.

The reform covers the Federal Information Service (BND), which operates abroad, the Federal Constitution Protection Service (BfV) and the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD).

In addition, the BfV and the BND may limit cooperation with the regional protection services of the Constitution, to a degree considered a reaction to the victory of the far-right Alternative Party for Germany (AfD) in the elections in Saxony-Anhalt, in the east of the country, where it is expected to form a Government.

The German Interior Minister, Alexander Dobrindt, classified the reform as historical, stating that it will enable the information services to be transformed into true secret services.

“ Intelligence will become real intelligence. We need this measure against the enemies of democracy, both inside and outside the country,” Dobrindt said during the debate that preceded the adoption of the law.

So far, German secret services had less powers than their US counterparts and those of most other European countries.

With the new legislation, the services will be able to perform cyber attacks to damage the attackers' infrastructure, erase information collected by them, or promptly disclose false information.

In the case of the BfV, these measures may be approved exceptionally only where it is not possible to transmit to the police information from secret services of allied countries.

The reform also provides for the establishment of a Control Board, composed of former judges, which will have the function of assessing in advance the legality of certain measures, such as entry into a dwelling without the authorisation of their residents.

With this initiative, the government coalition seeks to respond to the new security environment, marked by activities of hostile secret services such as those of Russia.