Federal Interior Minister Nancy Fesser (SPD) wants to give the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) the right to secretly enter and search apartments in the future in order to combat terrorism. This would make it easier for investigators to install a federal trojan for secret online searches and source telecommunications surveillance (Quellen-TKÜ) on IT systems such as smartphones or computers. According to editorials Network Germany and taz, this comes from a draft amendment to the BKA law, which has so far been the focus of criticism mainly due to the planned permission for biometric facial recognition.
Advertisement
US class action lawsuit: Apple ignores child abuse material in iCloudSource With TKÜ, the police can listen to ongoing communications via messengers such as WhatsApp, Signal or Threema directly on the target system before it is encrypted or after it is decrypted. During a more extensive online search, officers are also allowed to access stored files. Both tools typically require the use of state trojans and the exploitation of security gaps. However, remote installation of such monitoring software often causes problems if the target system is effectively protected from external attacks. The draft from the Federal Ministry of the Interior states that the BKA should be able to “physically influence IT equipment”. This is the “technically safest and fastest way” to implement federal trojans without the “participation of the target person”.
The draft law would provide for the right of entry and related powers as a matter of last resort (ultima ratio) and would require judicial approval in individual cases. is it(called) In Report. The aim could also be to exchange potential “instruments of crime” or render them unusable before planned attacks. The approach is not entirely new: the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania decided to reform the police law in 2022, including a “right of entry” for law enforcement officers for online searches.
Fesser opposes coalition agreement
In 2019, the then federal interior minister, Horst Seehofer, wanted to amend the constitutional protection law to enable state guards and BND agents to secretly sneak into apartments to install federal trojans on end devices. Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) had already called for a debate about this as federal interior minister in 2008. In 2018, the justice ministers of the federal states advocated for a right of entry to get state trojans on devices for surveillance. For years, the BKA did not use its right to hack IT systems. Authority investigators are said to have used spying programs against Reich civilian networks in 2022. The federal trojan, which was initially created by the BKA for 5.77 million euros, was only suitable for TKÜ sources. A more powerful version has long been in the works. At the same time, the office acquired the state trojan FinSpy.
The Faser draft, which has not been coordinated within the federal government, does not fit into the traffic light coalition agreement in this new point either. It states: “We have set the interference thresholds for the use of surveillance software, including commercial software, high.” The existing powers for the police must be adjusted so that the requirements of the Federal Constitutional Court for online searches and the core area of private life are always respected. The deputy of the Green parliamentary group, Konstantin von Notz, called now “serious times”. The BKA needs “modern investigative powers and resources”. At the same time, it “can only exist within the framework of the constitutional order”. The Federal Constitutional Court has given clear guidelines here. The draft law must be examined from this perspective. Criticism by DJV federal president Mika Bester: “Secret burglaries are reminiscent of the methods of police states, but not of liberal democracies.”
(Application)
“Breaking Taboo”: Bushman stops Fesser during secret apartment search
