The story is repeated, with a different protagonist, and at the bottom of the NSA. The following news is about the German Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) and all secret intelligence services.
Hungry?
No one can say for sure, but according to the information they have published from time to time, these agencies seem to collect data and store them in databases that should not exist. In the case of BND, there was even a refusal to audit the agency's actions with the Federal Commissioner for Personal Data Protection (BfDI).
A summary of the analysis of a classified report submitted by former Commissioner for Personal Data Protection Peter Schaar when he sent his representatives to inspect the NSA-BND joint station in Bad Aibling in southern Germany in the wake of the revelations of Edward Snowden, was drafted by today's Commissioner, Andrea Voßhoff, and was published last week by the German Netzpolitik blog.
The report shows that the BND, which is administratively under the German Chancellery office, regularly ignores laws and the German constitution.
Among what he reveals are:
- Bad Aibling station was used not only for satellite eavesdropping by crisis areas, as alleged in the past, but also for cable interception in non-European countries.
- Seven databases filled with extensive personal data were illegally created. One of them was created with the help of XKeyscore, the NSA's tool for collecting public and private communications from movement of the Internet around the world.
- Some of these data belong to persons who are not allowed to be monitored by the BND, ie German citizens who are not suspected of anything specific. All of the data was shared with the NSA.
- Commissioner access denied to a selected database with over 14 millions records provided by the NSA to the BND.
- Another database contains metadata of all communication lines, which are collected indiscriminately. There are no logs, so the Data Protection Commissioner could not control how the data is being used. In addition, the BND repeatedly deleted data pending examination by the Data Protection Commissioner.
- The Commissioner was admitted to the Special US Liaison Activity Germany (SUSLAG) building where bulk surveillance data was exchanged between BND and the NSA, and BND refused to report how many people are working for the US authorities at Bad Aibling station.
Commissioner Voßhoff sent the analysis-complaint to the Chancellery at the beginning of 2016 and, according to Andre Meister of Netzpolitik, the German government is trying to draft a bill that will legitimize BND's actions and broaden its scope.
"This package of legislation is scheduled to be adopted this year and will probably enter into force early next year," he added.
Unfortunately, governments around the world use the same tactic to keep citizens complacent. While at the beginning they state that "we have sufficient supervision over the actions of the intelligence service" each control can prove otherwise.
So, once proven to the contrary, governments are changing laws to make illegal actions legitimate, and life continues.
Dedicated to those who continue to believe it exists better safety in dianetwork.
