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08/12/2026 August 12, 2026 Cabinet set to pass controversial intelligence agency reform The foreign intelligence agency (BND) is headquartered in Berlin's Mitte district Image: NDR
08/12/2026 August 12, 2026 Cabinet set to pass controversial intelligence agency reform The foreign intelligence agency (BND) is headquartered in Berlin's Mitte district Image: NDR The German Cabinet is set to approve a more than 700-page package of laws granting much greater powers to both the domestic intelligence agency (BfV) and the foreign intelligence agency (BND). The package will allow the agencies more latitude in the gathering and storage of information and data, along with new options to actively combat acts of sabotage and hacking attacks.
The government says the package aims to enable the agencies to operate more effectively in the face of a myriad of hybrid security threats. "We will not look on passively as foreign interference, sabotage and threats to the pillars of our constitution and our free society continue to grow," chancellery head Nina Warken told the daily Rheinische Post. "Our [intelligence] services can only take targeted action against these hybrid attacks if they have more liberties and up-to-date measures" at their disposal, she said.
However, the planned reform has also met with considerable criticism from those who see the extended powers as a threat to civil rights. The leader of the Free Democrats (FDP), Wolfgang Kubicki, accused Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt of "breaking a taboo." "It can hardly be imagined that the Constitutional Court will not intervene here," he told the Augsburger Allgemeine daily. "I do not want any secret police in Germany," he said.
"I want full court control in the case of attacks on basic rights and a state that understands that you don't defend liberty by curbing it."
The BriefWire