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 Privacy Commissioner Peter Schaar when he sentpersons to inspect the joint NSA-BND station in Bad Aibling (south Germany) in the wake of Edward Snowden's revelations, was drafted by the current Commissioner Ms. Andrea Voßhoff, and was published last week by the German blog Netzpolitik.
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, which are full of extensive personal data, have been illegally created. One of these was created with the help of XKeyscore, the NSA tool for collecting public and private communications from Internet traffic 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.
- The Commissioner refused access to a selected database with more than 14 million subscriptions provided by the NSA to BND.
- Another database contains metadata of all communication lines, which are collected indiscriminately. They do not exist archives recording and thus the Data Protection Commissioner could not control how the data is used. In addition, the BND repeatedly deleted data pending examination by the Data Protection Commissioner.
- The Commissioner was denied entry to the Special US Liaison building Activity Germany (SUSLAG), where mass surveillance data is shared between the BND and the NSA, and the BND declined to say how many people work for US authorities at the 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 passed this year and will likely come into effect early next year," he added.
Δυστυχώς, οι κυβερνήσεις σε όλο τον κόσμο χρησιμοποιούν την ίδια τακτική για να κρατήσουν τους πολίτες σε εφησυχασμό. Ενώ στην αρχή αναφέρουν ότι "έχουμε επαρκή εποπτεία στις δράσεις της υπηρεσίας πληροφοριών" ο κάθε έλεγχος μπορεί να αποδείξει το αντίθετο.
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 there is security on the internet.