Dobrindt wants to use minors as informants – Kubicki sees “breaking of taboo”
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Interior Minister Dobrindt (CSU) plans to have the Office for the Protection of the Constitution recruit minors as informants in the future. Kubicki warns against crossing borders.
Berlin – A project by Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) has so far attracted little public attention: As part of a planned reorganization of the German intelligence services, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution will in future also be allowed to recruit minors aged 16 and over as informants. FDP federal chairman Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP) is now up in arms and warns urgently about the consequences.
In a column for the magazine Cicero On Saturday (July 11th), Kubicki vented his displeasure against the comprehensive draft intelligence law by Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU). It is intended to provide the Office for the Protection of the Constitution with expanded powers. According to the bill that… Mirror is available, 16-year-olds should be able to be recruited as informants – i.e. as paid informants for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution should use minors in the fight against right-wing extremism
The reasons for this step are loud Mirror with the increasingly younger age of right-wing extremists. A concrete example is the “National Revolutionary Youth”, the youth organization of the neo-Nazi party “III. Weg”. Overall, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution should focus more on spies, terrorists and violent enemies of the constitution and actively thwart their plans instead of just collecting and evaluating information.
Kubicki, the new FDP leader since the end of May, criticizes the inconsistency of the project in his guest article and on the online platform
The German legal system does not even consider this age group to have full legal capacity, Kubicki continued, which is why one can now “smugly” ask “whether the new undercover agents will have to present a parental letter to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the future that approves their secret service activity.” But the matter is too serious for jokes, the new FDP leader continued: “Moral and ethical boundaries are being crossed here, also because working for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution can put the informants in considerable danger.”
Dobrindt plans new secret service law – Kubicki sees “historical breach of taboo”
Kubicki criticizes in his column Cicero not only the planned use of underage informants, but also calls into question the entire reform of the secret service law. The FDP leader sees this as a “historic breach of taboo”: the strict separation requirement between police and secret service work will be affected by the planned powers of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. This is a direct lesson from the experiences with the Gestapo and the GDR Ministry for State Security. The fact that a domestic secret service that can target its own citizens is being upgraded in this way is “worth a little more discussion,” said Kubicki Cicero.
Kubicki also notes in his column that the plan for informants and expanded secret service powers has hardly been discussed publicly so far. The public’s attention was focused on the coalition’s reform package – with “extremely dangerous interventions in civil rights” running in the background, complains the defense lawyer.
The federal government also wants to restrict the Freedom of Information Act – Kubicki warns
In addition to the reorganization of the intelligence services, Kubicki also mentions planned changes to the Freedom of Information Act, which he sees as an attack on transparency and a free press. As part of the reform package, the adjustments are intended to contribute to reducing bureaucracy.
“This law is actually an achievement of a modern civil society,” writes the FDP leader. The Freedom of Information Act enables all citizens to access information from government agencies. “A state cannot come under enough pressure to justify itself to the people who empowered it,” said the 74-year-old.
It is unclear whether the Bundestag will adopt the plans in their current form. At least the SPD parliamentary group probably does not want to agree to the planned restrictions on the Freedom of Information Act. An inquiry from the Munich Merkur to the Federal Ministry of the Interior as to how the planned use of minors as informants can be justified has so far remained unanswered. (Sources: Cicero, The Mirror) (smu)