
German Federal Intelligence Service BND Violates Laws And Constitution - brakmic
https://netzpolitik.org/2016/secret-report-german-federal-intelligence-service-bnd-violates-laws-by-the-dozen/
======
germanier
One of the more "fun" things they use to justify what they do internally: the
_outer space theory_. You have to know that the Federal Intelligence Service
(BND) is (simplified) only allowed to operate outside Germany. Now they have
antennas in Germany to monitor communication passively relayed on a satellite.
As we all know, the satellite is located outside Germany, so they pretend this
is legal.

In a similiar argument, internet exchange points in Frankfurt are declared
"effectively outside Germany" and therefore fair game.

If you find that interesting, at last year's 32C3 they had a fun renenactment
of some abstruse scenes full of such things[0] from the parliamentary
investigation committee on the NSA and its cooperation with the BND (which
itself is not filmed publicly). English interpretation is available.
[https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7225-grundrechte_gelten_nicht_im...](https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7225-grundrechte_gelten_nicht_im_weltall#download)

To anyone German-speaking[1] in Berlin I can recommend visiting a session of
the committee. It's really illuminating to see those intelligence agents
trying to save their face firsthand.
[https://www.bundestag.de/bundestag/ausschuesse18/ua/1untersu...](https://www.bundestag.de/bundestag/ausschuesse18/ua/1untersuchungsausschuss/tagesordnungen)

[0]: Did you know that US intelligence interrogated refugees in Germany on
"the bread supply situation" in their home countries and used Google Maps for
that?

[1]: Sometimes they have English-speaking witnesses. This week it's people
from the ACLU but they also had an US drone pilot and a Verizon executive in
the past.

~~~
mtgx
Yes, all spy agencies tend to use "technically legal" stuff like that to
operate _around_ what the law intended to _stop them from doing_.

This is why it's so _critical_ to have an oversight committee with deep
knowledge of everything that's going on within the agency, regular audits, and
a willingness to actually act as supervisors _in favor of the law_ \- NOT the
agency.

That _should_ be their job. Unfortunately, virtually all such committees tend
to act more as _cheerleaders_ for the spy agencies than actual supervisors
meant to hold the agencies accountable.

~~~
dmix
And in the unlikely scenario where Germany or one of the five eyes do get
proper controls then they can always just lean on the US, who most definitely
wont be getting controls anytime soon as both presidential candidates want
_more_ intel gathering (greatly expanding collection is Hillary's primary
security strategy). They can just stop storing the data locally and call up
the NSA whenever they need anything they can't collect legally themselves.

------
solatic
You all need to understand... in the age of the Internet, every governmental
body which deals with computers under any veil of secrecy/classification
inevitably uses that veil of secrecy or classification to break the law.

Every. Single. One.

It's just too easy for them not to. The incentives are stacked against them to
keep the law. There are too many internal controls that are necessary to pass
in order to obey the law, so just like in any other human endeavor, management
will follow the path of least resistance. They are protected by national
security / classification law from anybody finding out. If it leaks anyway
that they broke the law? Nobody will be fired or sent to jail, and the
whistle-blower will be tried for treason for leaking classified information.

If we, as citizens, abhor this behavior - we must fix the incentives. There is
no other way.

~~~
dmix
Professional criminals lives depend entirely on their ability to conceal their
crimes, or more specially their connection to crimes. It's not surprising that
the intel community who are the very best in the world at concealment and
containment would use that same skillset to circumvent already ineffective
control systems that limit their activity. Which is why they do whatever they
want.

For example, Snowden didnt even have access to Tao or high level projects
thanks to compartmentalization. Who knows how much deeper this stuff goes. I'd
imagine we only got access to the low-hanging fruit of the NSA operations. The
real dirty stuff would be in the CNE departments where they get total control
of whomevers machines they want.

------
cm3
I've lost general respect for German intelligence and policing apparati after
Thuringen willfully destroyed evidence regarding right-wing-terrorists to
cover their misdeeds. Happened again later in a murder case in Kassel in the
same investigation. It may be isolated incidents, but that this is possible
and the fact that there have been no visible consequences to make up for it is
telling.

If there are long-term interests/plans and these are games like those played
by the CIA, then at least let the public know about this little detail and
argue for keeping it confidential and excuse collateral damage. I won't
condone it, but it would be an explanation, if it's not brought forward on
every 2nd incident.

That said, I do have respect for the foot soldiers in the force, just as I do
for hospital staff.

~~~
schlowmo
> "It may be isolated incidents"

Yes, "it may". German agencies are famous for "isolated incidents". It's only
a matter of definition what's to be called "isolated".

Those isolated incidents reach back even to the "Operation Gehlen"[0], the
predecessor of the BND which was founded in 1946. One could say that the
history of German agencies is the history of isolated incidents. While this
may hold true for intelligence agencies all over the world, the historic ties
leave a very bad taste regarding right-wing-terror in Germany. The "National
Socialist Underground" (NSU)[1] was only the tip of the iceberg.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehlen_Organization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehlen_Organization)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Underground](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Underground)

~~~
cm3
Regarding NSU, to this day I've failed to figure out how they dubbed their
pink panther video with what sounds like the original German dub voice and
made it sound good. Searching on the internet is hard because it finds all
kinds of irrelevant stuff. Would like to know more and if this is easily
possible for extremists with laptops to accomplish in such seamless quality,
if it's a stitch-work of existing audio tracks. It's the same level of quality
as the Obama video+audio stitch-work in Mr Robot.

~~~
mtmail
When you search for the audio quality of their videos is the "irrelevant
stuff" maybe their
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSU_murders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSU_murders)?

------
schlowmo
If you look at the media coverage of this topic in Germany so far one could
come to the conclusion that those mass-surveillance operations which reach the
public are considered more harmful when they are carried out by foreign
agencies (Surprise!...I know). This report hit the major news front pages for
only one day - my guess is that it has been longer if it was the NSA (or at
least the GCHQ) instead of the BND.

~~~
kuschku
Well, at least the BVerfG, which does care about privacy, has jurisdiction
about the BND.

It’s been quite obvious in the past years that the only part of the state the
people trust is the court system.

------
themartorana
It surprises me just _how quickly_ the major world governments _all_ started
violating sovereign laws and spying on/surveilling their own citizens.
Effectively, everyone is now monitored all the time by their own governments
bereft of suspicion of having committed a crime - or under the blanket
suspicion of everyone being _capable_ of committing a crime (AKA "act of
terrorism").

Conspiracy theorists might see the War on Terrorism as a premeditated
concoction to justify massive state surveillance, since it's about everyone's
justification. That's silly though. We all know they just took advantage of an
existing situation, right?

~~~
nxzero
>> "Conspiracy theorists might see the War on Terrorism as a premeditated
concoction to justify massive state surveillance"

Conspiracies aside, the term for this is a false flag operation:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag)

Given intelligence agencies like the CIA even do this internally to others
within the agency, anything is possible:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=cia+eyewash](https://www.google.com/search?q=cia+eyewash)

------
Sylos
I would have hoped that we would last longer, given how many people here
(including Angela Merkel) had suffered from the Stasi, but I guess not.

~~~
hutzlibu
Citation needed, that Merkel had suffered from Stasi, too. Afaik, she was
doing well, within the system.

~~~
Sylos
I meant that she lived in the DDR and knew what others were going through. She
herself was most likely doing fine, as she was a scientist, which the DDR
desperately needed to keep up their fassade of being more progressive than the
Western part of Germany.

------
krylon
> The BND’s claim that this information is essential, cannot substitute a
> missing legal basis

Let this roll around on your tongue for a moment. This is kind of like robbing
a bank and then saying you _really_ needed the money.

~~~
Artoemius
> This is kind of like robbing a bank and then saying you really needed the
> money.

That's a radical idea, but it has started to gain some popularity:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stealing-food-not-a-
crim...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stealing-food-not-a-crime-
italy_us_57296b6fe4b016f378941ef9)

~~~
maze-le
Do you seriously copmare the robbery of a bank with a homeless person stealing
food?

~~~
Artoemius
Not seriously. But I wouldn't seriously argue that it is always rational to
follow the law, either. Sometimes you _really_ need the money.

~~~
themartorana
Actually, not if you're a government. The last time they didn't follow the
letter of the law, we started torturing people again because we were _really_
hungry.

Most of our laws that exist at extremes (no torture, Geneva Convention) exist
as a reaction against what _did happen_ the last time a stressful situation
was lawless, and a rational check against the next time stress brings up a
possible irrational reaction.

Stealing food should _always_ be a crime - it let's us then consider the
circumstances surrounding the action, and forgive the crime. (This is the
basic argument against mandatory sentencing. It removes empathy, which makes
us less than human.)

------
plandis
What country doesn't spy and try to delicately skate around the law?

Everyone was surprised with US spying but honestly, why isn't every country
trying to or actively doing that too?

------
giardini
So will this force any change in the behavior of the BND?

------
pjmlp
So what else is new?

This is how secret services always worked since they exist, yes even in
democratic countries.

~~~
wongarsu
So just because banks have always been robbed we should allow bank robberies
to continue?

Intelligence agencies have to obey the law, just like every other government
agency. We can make exceptions for them within the law, but that has to go
through the usual legislative processes. If they just ignore our laws that's a
problem we should attempt to fix.

~~~
pjmlp
Not everyone can be caught playing by the book.

Life is not a movie set.

~~~
wongarsu
Then don't catch everyone?

Out laws are there for a reason: we want the state to run the intelligence
service, not the other way around.

In single, extreme cases I can see occasional violations being tolerable. But
here we're talking about systematic violations, which are not tolerable on any
level.

~~~
pjmlp
Are you so naive to think that the upper government level isn't aware of what
they are doing?

------
fiatjaf
So who was expecting that the State would be honest?

~~~
pyvpx
considering in a democratic system the government is a representation of the
will of the governed and, you know, us governed types don't expect us to lie
to ourselves.

or something.

~~~
clarkmoody
> government is a representation of the will of the governed

No. By this reasoning "we are all murderers."

A democratic system means that 51% of the people can legally deprive the other
49% of basic liberties.

~~~
fit2rule
A democratic government is the _responsibility_ of the people it governs -
even if you didn't elect them, the fact that you choose to continue to be
governed by them, and that they gain _all their powers from this investment of
your own sovereignty into their state_ , means that you are in fact
responsible for your government. Period.

It doesn't change just because you don't like it. American citizens, pro- and
anti- the American state, nevertheless gain their protections as citizens from
participating in that state, large and small. Citizens _are_ responsible for
their governments, who have no powers otherwise.

And we all know: the corruption of government begins with its secrets. That
we, citizens, are unwilling to deal with the secrets that corrupt us all, is
very telling in this day and age ..

~~~
fiatjaf
Please tell me what should I do to stop "investing my own sovereignty". That's
not clear.

------
mpweiher
In other breaking news: water wet.

------
jdimov10
Oh, and other countries' intelligence services would never think of violating
any laws, heaven forbid...

You know how your government keeps convincing you of the supremacy of the
"rule of law" and how "nobody is above the law", etc., etc... I think it's
beyond obvious to anyone with half a brain that these are boogie-monster fairy
tales.

When most people speak of law, what they mean is "rules that everyone must
follow". When the lawmakers speak of law, they mean "rules we've been told to
make everyone follow". Of course, the people and entities that these laws come
from are above the law almost by definition. The amount of hypocrisy
surrounding "justice" systems around the world is tremendous - it has always
been. But people mostly like it this way - it's worked for a few thousands of
years and is likely to work for a few thousand more.

~~~
x2398dh1
You're taking the concept of, "knowledge," and the concept of, "government"
and mixing them together into a very swirly, confused, nihilistic statement.
Are laws written down on paper simply that they will be broken by the
government, but not by the people? While that may almost inevitably happen
over the decades and centuries of a republic existence, that is certainly not
the intent of laws, at least in a western republic such as Germany or the US.
Governments breaking laws is not, "above the law," \- it is actually, by
definition, breaking the law, when the Government breaks the law, which is the
opposite of what you're saying. You're saying that everyone knew when those
laws were written, that they would actually be breakable by the government.
That's not true. The lawyers who bring and win cases against the Government
don't know that...in fact, they know the opposite to be true. Now, as to the
question of the conduct of individual politicians who believe they can break
the law, that is a third question - is it OK for politicians to break the law
to achieve a certain end? Well...sometimes yes, sometimes no...you can't just
make a blanket statement saying that 100% of the time every time a politician
has broken a law that it has been morally corrupt. There is a such thing as
bad laws. Overall, I think your heart is in the right place in terms of
wanting better moral conduct, but you are very confused on what Governments
are, and you should perhaps consider delving further into historical
literature on the subject.

~~~
sneak
[http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com](http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com)

There are two sets of laws. One for lawmakers, the ultra-wealthy, politicians,
judges, military, and cops (the protected class who can carry weapons); and
another one for you and I.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Almost nobody has been indicted from a Senate hearing, whether they were high
level bureaucrats like Clapper or ordinary private citizens, and there have
been lies and half-truths in almost all of them. In this case, Clapper
admitted his mistake answering this question which he likened to many similar
questions about whether the NSA was intercepting Americans' communications and
creating dossiers on them, which it was not.

