The German secret service BND monitors the electronic communication of citizens without reason and stores both metadata and data about the content of the communication - in serious violation of existing laws on the protection of personal data.
When Edward Snowden revealed three years ago that the secret services are completely monitoring the digital world, and the American secret service NSA is listening to the mobile phones of the German chancellor and other high-ranking politicians, the government in Berlin did everything to cover up the information as quickly as possible. In August 2013, Minister in the Chancellery Roland Pofala (CDU) declared the affair closed and emphasized that the charges were "off the table". The German Commissioner for the Protection of Personal Data at the time, Peter Schar, dissatisfied with that answer, sent his team on a control visit to the surveillance headquarters of the German intelligence service BND in Bad Eibling. The "control visit" turned into a three-year tussle with the BND, during which Peter Šar's mandate expired, so that the entire matter was taken over by his successor in office - Andrea Foshof (CDU).
The full title of the position is: Federal Commissioner/Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information. The Bundestag votes on the persons proposed for that position. It formally belongs to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but is not under its jurisdiction, but works independently, and since January 1 of this year, no government body has the formal right to supervise its work.
"Massive illegal" conduct
Foshof continued to investigate the BND's actions - where Peter Šar left off - with a meticulousness that surprised many, given that data protection activists accused her of being rather inert in her work. Her report and legal assessment were immediately declared secret documents. However, the journalistic team of the internet magazine Necpolitik reached them - and published the complete text. In the 60-page report, it is written that the BND has committed 18 serious violations of rights, and 12 objections are made to its work under the provisions of the Federal Law on Data Protection. This type of objection is the sharpest tool available to attorneys.
Andrea Foshof stated that the BND "massively and unlawfully prevented" her controls on several occasions. Additionally, that the Secret Service has been creating and using files on citizens for years without proper court orders. Although the data refer only to the work of the BND team in Bad Aibling, the representative emphasized that the violations of the law she is talking about are of "extreme significance" and belong to the "core tasks of the Service". According to her, the service "obtained personal data that it systematically used further" by monitoring citizens without legal cover. BND's claim that "it needs these data cannot replace the missing legal basis for their use".
Data must be deleted...
The report further showed that the BND is not only "eavesdropping" on satellites over crisis areas - as former head of the Service Gerhard Schindler claimed - but also on cable communications. The surveillance did not cover only potential terrorists, but also a huge number of other citizens. Since the Service did not want to announce the number, Andrea Foshof calculated that there is a ratio of 1:15, so for every target person there are 15 citizens whose data is illegally taken and stored - even though it is unnecessary for the Service's specific task.
According to Foshofova's report, the BND created seven files in Bad Aibling, although it did not have official approval for this. These files contain personal data that have been used outside of the relevant regulations. Thus, for example, the specific purpose of the processing and use of data on citizens is not specified, which is a serious violation of the law. That's why Andrea Foshof demands that the BND "urgently delete" all those files and "immediately stop any further use of that data."
XKEYSCORE – a magical tool
One of the mentioned seven files is named XKEYSCORE. It is a notorious tool of the American secret service NSA, which it uses to monitor all private communication, that is, almost everything that a user does on the Internet. BND, according to Foshofova's report, uses XKEYSCORE to obtain, process and store information, not only metadata, but also communication content. In her report, it is written that this system, on the basis of terms that can be freely defined or combined, monitors the entire world Internet traffic (IP traffic) and stores all metadata and content in that communication (e-mail, chats, content of public and social networks and media such as and messages and content that are not intended for public communication).
Using this software, the BND forwards to the US NSA the data it requests. According to current laws, these data should be "cleaned" so that they no longer contain information about German citizens in Germany - because the BND is a secret service for foreign countries. But the Data Protection Commissioner found that much of the information was not filtered that way at all. In addition, the BND has not made available to the Bundestag for years the concepts it receives from the NSA in order to use them to search the Internet (the so-called "selectors"), even though it has been asked to do so several times.
Surveillance is being intensified
By the way, while Andrea Foshof was in control in Bad Aibling, the BND spent 300 million euros to modernize its equipment. And the Great Coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats has prepared a new Law on the Work of the BND, which will legalize a large number of illegal measures. For example, wiretapping of citizens on German soil should be allowed; there will no longer be a limit on the number of cable connections that can be monitored, etc. The authorities do not deviate from their plans, although they include surveillance of citizens that has nothing to do with well-founded suspicions, but only with the need for the state to control public behavior. Since Edward Snowden introduced the world to the extent of this control, it has not been seriously questioned anywhere; on the contrary: it consistently intensified. It is hard to expect that this will change even after Andrea Foshof's report.
Bonus video:
