For decades, the German intelligence agency BND and the domestic security service BFV have operated under strict restrictions that make it difficult to conduct covert operations of the kind carried out by the US CIA or Israel's Mossad. But the German government has now proposed legislation that would change that.
The new law gives intelligence services the opportunity to carry out cyberattacks themselves, for example by knocking out foreign IT systems used by hostile actors or blocking payment flows.
Hybrid campaign
Chancellor Friedrich Merz's coalition government has argued that more powerful intelligence services are needed to counter threats from hostile powers, cybercriminals and terrorist groups.
Germany accuses Vladimir Putin's Russian regime of conducting a "hybrid campaign" of sabotage, espionage and disinformation against the country, which is one of Ukraine's largest military backers in the war against Russia.
Record amount
Germany has invested record amounts in building up its defence after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the government believes that an expansion of the intelligence services is also needed.
The restrictions on the work of the intelligence service were introduced partly because of the brutal abuses committed by the Nazi dictatorship and communist East Germany, but also because personal privacy is an especially cherished right in Germany.
