Chief of the Chancellery, Thorsten Frei (CDU), has called for expanded powers for the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND). In an interview on the ntv program “Blome und Pfeffer”, he stressed that Germany must remain a “credible, reliable and effective partner” for other intelligence agencies and suggested that the country look to what its European counterparts have been doing for many years.
The main focus of Frei’s proposal is the BND’s operational abilities abroad. He noted that French services, for example, can deactivate servers overseas when a cyberattack occurs. “Yes, I have talked about that” Frei said, underscoring that simply collecting intelligence will no longer be sufficient. The agency needs to be able to act, especially if Germany faces a threat: it must not only observe but also be prepared to protect itself.
Frei added that the ultimate goal is to safeguard human life and, in extreme cases, the very survival of the country. Intelligence services in other nations already possess these operational capacities, and Germany should too.
