More powers for the Federal Criminal Police Office to conduct secret house searches? Not with me, says the FDP Justice Minister.
Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann rejects the expansion of the BKA’s powers to search homes planned by Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD). “There will be no powers to secretly snoop in homes,” the FDP politician told the “Bild” newspaper (Friday). “We don’t do anything like that in the state governed by the Basic Law. That would be an absolute breach of taboo.”
Faeser wants to allow the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) to carry out covert searches of homes in certain cases. This is the result of a draft from her office, which is still being discussed within the federal government. The measure should therefore only be permitted if “there is a concrete danger situation with regard to the preparation of a terrorist attack and there is only uncertainty as to the specific stage in which the planning of the crime is at,” the draft states in its justification.
The draft law amending the Federal Criminal Police Office Act and the Federal Police Act also includes the authority for biometric internet comparison of image data and permission to evaluate data already collected as well as to recognize existing links, including through AI-based instruments.
“As Minister of the Constitution, I reject such ideas,” Buschmann said of the draft. “If someone seriously wants to propose this, such a proposal will neither pass the cabinet nor will there be a majority for it in parliament.”
Source: Stern
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