{"id":71493,"date":"2026-08-13T03:55:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T03:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/71493\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T03:55:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T03:55:48","slug":"germany-wants-to-give-its-intelligence-services-more-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/71493\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany wants to give its intelligence services more powers"},"content":{"rendered":"

BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Germany\u2019s government plans to give its intelligence services broader powers for actions such as disabling sabotage and hacking attempts in response to a rising threat from powers such as Russia<\/a> and extremists.<\/p>\n

The Cabinet on Wednesday approved draft legislation meant to strengthen Germany\u2019s Federal Intelligence Service, the BND, and its domestic intelligence service, the BfV, and reduce the reliance of the European Union\u2019s<\/a> most populous nation on tips from its allies.<\/p>\n

The powers of Germany\u2019s intelligence services have long lagged behind those of major European counterparts. Modern Germany has traditionally been sensitive to data protection concerns, not least because of memories of repression under the Nazis and later by communist East Germany\u2019s secret police. <\/p>\n

\u201cNowadays, Germany is constantly a target of hybrid attacks by foreign powers and that is a real, very acute danger,\u201d said Nina Warken<\/a>, Chancellor Friedrich Merz\u2019s chief of staff. \u201cWe are simply too dependent on the intelligence services of other countries supporting us, and at the moment this help is a one-way street in too many areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said \u201cwe are developing our intelligence services into real intelligence services.\u201d <\/p>\n

The threats Germany now faces require intelligence services that are \u201ccompetitive with our partner services in the European Union, but also with friendly services beyond that,\u201d Dobrindt added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a daily target of espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks and hidden actions by foreign powers with the aim of destabilizing our country, damaging our country, and bringing about political and social changes in our country,\u201d Dobrindt said. <\/p>\n

Under the planned reform, which still requires parliamentary approval, the intelligence services will get more powers to access laptops, cellphones and other devices and store the data. <\/p>\n

Warken, whose job involves overseeing the intelligence services, said they also will be able to take \u201cactive measures.\u201d <\/p>\n

The BND could, for example, swap out components in deliveries for faulty ones, access the IT systems of drone factories or chemical weapons laboratories to sabotage them, or disable or switch off the servers of hackers or disinformation agents linked to foreign states, Warken said.<\/p>\n

Dobrindt also pointed to the possibility of exchanging explosives for harmless substances.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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The reform has been planned for months. The risks Germany faces were underlined last week by the discovery of a drone carrying explosives<\/a> at Leipzig\/Halle airport, a major hub for international freight and for providing support to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

That incident is under investigation<\/a> and authorities haven\u2019t said who might have been responsible.<\/p>\n

While Dobrindt and Warken didn\u2019t name the foreign powers they are worried about, Russia\u2019s activities in particular have been a constant concern for authorities across much of Europe in recent years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Germany\u2019s government plans to give its intelligence services broader powers for actions such as disabling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[406,151,722,393,122,5,632,53204,6929,5188,358,47467,46],"class_list":["post-71493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-alexander-dobrindt","tag-europe","tag-european-union","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-general-news","tag-germany","tag-germany-government","tag-laptops","tag-legislation","tag-nina-warken","tag-politics","tag-radicalism","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}