Senior German blogger Norbert Haering reviewed the draft Intelligence Agencies Act in a July 14 column on his blog, characterizing it as a profound change aiming to turn the domestic and foreign intelligence agencies into intervention agencies, a move which contradicts the intent of the Basic Law (Constitution—ed.).
“With his draft bill on intelligence service reform—tossed into the summer lull—Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt is laying the groundwork for using intelligence agency resources to investigate and combat political parties and journalists who challenge the narratives of the government, the EU, or NATO,” Haering charges.
The alleged “preventive” function on the agencies exists only on paper, Haering notes: It is sufficient if a foreign power is (presumably) systematically active in Germany through “influence operations that covertly manipulate the democratic decision-making process.” In that case, it does not matter whether a journalist who publishes material critical of the government or NATO does so under foreign influence. For him to be considered a “participant,” it is sufficient that his actions benefit foreign propaganda agents and are used by them accordingly.
The required threat to “particularly important legal interests” is also quickly established. These particularly important legal interests include, among other things, “the free democratic basic order” and “the security of the European Union and the international organizations to which the Federal Republic of Germany belongs,” with NATO being mentioned particularly frequently in the draft bill. NATO itself determines when its security is threatened. Since it is engaged in a propaganda war with Russia, it does not take much for that to be the case.
