ZCZC
BFF-43
GERMANY-INTELLIGENCE-COURT-INTERNET-TELECOMS
German spy agency can keep tabs on internet hubs: court
BERLIN, May 31, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Germany’s spy agency can monitor major
internet hubs if Berlin deems it necessary for strategic security interests,
a federal court has ruled.
In a ruling late on Wednesday, the Federal Administrative Court threw
out a challenge by the world’s largest internet hub, the De-Cix exchange,
against the tapping of its data flows by the BND foreign intelligence
service.
The operator had argued the agency was breaking the law by capturing
German domestic communications along with international data.
However, the court in the eastern city of Leipzig ruled that internet
hubs “can be required by the federal interior ministry to assist with
strategic communications surveillance by the BND”.
De-Cix says its Frankfurt hub is the world’s biggest internet exchange,
bundling data flows from as far as China, Russia, the Middle East and Africa,
which handles more than six terabytes per second at peak traffic.
De-Cix Management GmbH, which is owned by eco Association, the European
internet industry body, had filed suit against the interior ministry, which
oversees the BND and its strategic signals intelligence.
It said the BND, a partner of the US National Security Agency (NSA), has
placed so-called Y-piece prisms into its data-carrying fibre optic cables
that give it an unfiltered and complete copy of the data flow.
Given the mass of daily phone calls, emails, chats, internet searches,
streamed videos and other online communications, an effective fire-walling of
purely German communications is unrealistic, activists argue.
Germany had reacted with outrage when information leaked by former NSA
contractor Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that US agents were carrying out
widespread tapping worldwide, including of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile
phone.
Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany where state spying on
citizens was rampant, declared repeatedly that “spying among friends is not
on” while acknowledging Germany’s reliance on the US in security matters. But
to the great embarrassment of Germany, it later emerged that the BND helped
the NSA spy on European allies.
Berlin in 2016 approved new measures, including greater oversight, to
rein in the BND following the scandal.
BSS/AFP/RY/1548 hrs