Germany's spies get powers to sabotage, hack and plant false data

German lawmakers voted 309 to 190, with 71 abstentions, to hand the country's intelligence services powers they have never had before. The BND, which handles foreign intelligence, will now be able to conduct covert operations abroad, including sabotage. That could mean paralysing the servers of state-sponsored hacker groups, disrupting disinformation networks, or going after weapons supply chains.

At home, the BfV — the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution — will no longer be limited to collecting information. For the first time, agents can take protective action against property and IT systems when specific threats are identified: dismantling or breaking explosives and weapons, blocking or diverting data flows during cyber-attacks, deleting or falsifying data stored for malicious ends, and planting false information about the people involved.

BfV agents will also be allowed to enter homes covertly under certain conditions, though the move must always be authorised in advance. Their digital reach expands too, covering encrypted telecommunications, online searches, AI-supported data analysis and biometric image matching on the internet.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, who championed the bill, framed it as a response to growing foreign espionage, particularly from Russia, China and Iran. He called the law a reform of the century and said: We are the target of hybrid threats. Germany is a theatre of operations for terrorism, extremism and foreign powers. In August, a drone carrying an explosive device was found at Leipzig Airport near Ukrainian cargo planes; it failed to detonate because its detonator was apparently faulty, and German authorities blame Russia.

The Left Party's security spokeswoman, Clara Bünger, said Dobrindt was creating a new German secret police. She told public broadcaster ARD the law was a monster summoning ghosts we will probably never be able to get rid of, and warned the separation between police and secret service was being eroded — a lesson she tied to the Nazi era. Dobrindt has dismissed the secret-police charge as madness.

Not everyone is alarmed. Sonja Eichwede of the centre-left SPD said the reforms would make a significant contribution to keeping Germany's democracy robust and resilient.