On Thursday, lawmakers used a loaded word: secret police. The cabinet already signed a draft that would let Germany’s spy services do more than watch. Here is what the bill would allow, who cheers it, who fears it, and what the record actually shows.
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| FILE PHOTO: The HQ of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is seen in Berlin, Germany, on July 19, 2026. © Global Look Press / Michael Kuenne |
The first reading in the Bundestag on 24 September 2026 did not settle the fight. It named it. Opposition members from the Alternative for Germany, the Left and the Greens accused Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government of building a secret police by handing the foreign service (BND) and the domestic service (BfV) tools that used to sit with police — or with no one at all. The government says Germany is a target of cyber attacks, sabotage and foreign influence and that its spy services still work like analysts with notebooks while partners already act. Both claims can be true at once. The draft is not law. It still needs the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. The government wants it in force at the start of 2027.
The official record of that sitting is on the Bundestag site: Gesetzentwurf zur Reform des Nachrichtendienstrechts. A same-day report of the opposition line ran on RT. Cabinet approval of the draft came on 12 August 2026 and was covered the same week by Deutsche Welle and AP.
What the draft would change
For decades the German model was simple on paper. Spy services gather and sort information. Police arrest, search homes and seize devices. Courts stand in the middle. That split was not an accident. It was a reply to the Gestapo and, later, to the East German Stasi. The new bill does not abolish the split in words. It narrows it in practice.
Under the cabinet draft, the BND would no longer stop at listening and reading. It could sabotage foreign firms, break into foreign computer systems and disable weapons judged a threat to Germany. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt called this a “new era.” He said the services must become “genuine intelligence agencies” and match European partners. In the Bundestag, the Chancellery and the interior ministry framed the same idea as active defence: shut down a hostile server when no other body can; disrupt an attack while it is still forming.
The BfV, which watches threats inside Germany, would gain quieter but closer tools. In set cases it could enter homes in secret and reach computers and phones. Critics say that is police work without a police badge. The government says the service would stay in covert mode, without open force against a person, and only when danger cannot wait for a normal search warrant. How wide “certain circumstances” really are will be decided in committee text that is not final.
Other pieces sit in the same package: longer storage of content and traffic data for the BND (up to six months for content and twelve for metadata in the Bundestag summary, without a prior check in some crisis cases); use of large data sets and machine tools; biometric matching against pictures already on the open web; real-time reach into some camera systems. Civil-rights groups such as the Society for Civil Rights (GFF) told DW in August that large parts of this would not survive a straight reading of the Basic Law, because the harm can fall on people who are not suspects.
The government case, in its own words
Dobrindt’s line is blunt. Germany, he says, faces hybrid pressure, terrorism, extremism and foreign services. Watching is not enough if a bomb can be made safe, a server can be taken down, or a foreign weapons system can be stopped before it is used. CDU and SPD speakers in the first reading repeated the same list: cyber raids, drones, foreign money in politics, Russian hybrid work. SPD speaker Sonja Eichwede said the tools must fit the digital age and sit at the same level as partner services. CDU’s Günter Krings said services should not only observe attacks but push them back.
That argument has a second layer. Berlin is spending more on defence and talking about being “war-ready” by the end of the decade. A larger army and a more active spy service are sold as one package. Readers who want the budget side of that shift can see how the 2027 draft lifts core defence outlays in German Cabinet Approves 2027 Budget: Defence Spending Surges to €109 Billion Amid Aid Cuts.
The government also promises more control, not less. Oversight would move toward an Independent Control Council that would gather court pre-approvals and data-protection checks. Parliament’s control committee would get more reports. Supporters say this is cleaner than the current scatter of offices. Critics say it thins the old data-protection watchdog and puts too much in one room.
Why “secret police” landed in the chamber
AfD member Gottfried Curio called the BfV overhaul “Stasi 2.0” and a “coup against the rule of law.” He warned of secret entry into homes, watch on private rooms, and reach into laptops and phones. The AfD, in the same week, backed a stronger BND with pre-cleared active steps abroad — counter-hacking and disruption of foreign systems — and looser data holding, with a narrower gate for sharing data on German citizens. That split matters. The party does not reject hard power at the border. It rejects the domestic service gaining police-like hands while that same service is in court with the AfD itself.
Left Party member Clara Bünger went further. She said the BfV could become a “new German secret police.” “Fundamental rights are being trampled on here,” she said. Her point was institutional: powers that used to need a judge and a police file would sit with a service that works in the dark and does not have to tell the person later in every case.
Green member Konstantin von Notz called wide BfV powers a “grave mistake” and asked whether parts of the bill would live through the Constitutional Court. He still backed a stronger BND. So the opposition is not one bloc. Foreign action has more friends than home break-ins.
The Stasi name is not a small word in German. The Ministry for State Security in the old East ran a web of staff and unofficial informers that reached into kitchens, churches and workplaces. West Germany built the BfV and BND after 1945 with a different brief: watch enemies of the constitution, do not become the political police. Every time a bill blurs that line, the old files come back into the debate. That does not prove the new law is the Stasi. It explains why the phrase works on the floor.
The service that watches the largest opposition party
Context is not decoration here. In 2025 the BfV labelled the AfD a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organisation. In February 2026 a Cologne court stopped the service from using that stamp while the case runs. The party is, at the same time, the strongest force in parts of the east. It took 43.8 percent in Saxony-Anhalt earlier this month and 38.3 percent in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Sunday. That is the same week the spy bill had its first reading.
A service that has already classified a party, lost a round in court, and now asks for keys to homes and phones will not be read as a neutral tool by that party’s voters. The government says the classification and the reform are separate files. The opposition says the same house cannot be referee and player. Readers who want the election numbers without the spy bill can start with AfD Hits 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt, Falls Short of Majority.
A second track: bypassing the states
The spy debate did not arrive alone. In July, The Telegraph and Die Welt reported that Berlin was drawing up a quiet plan to stop regional governments from blocking federal moves in a crisis — including troop movements tied to NATO. The Telegraph’s 30 July 2026 piece put it in hard language: a plan to stop “traitor states” from blocking NATO troops if AfD-led cabinets in the east refused. That report is not the intelligence bill. It is the weather around it. A federal cabinet that fears obstruction in the Länder and a federal cabinet that wants more covert tools are the same cabinet.
What history and the courts already said
German spy law has been in court before. The Constitutional Court has trimmed the BND’s reach into foreign cables and set rules on how data may be shared with other states. The old lesson from those rulings is narrow and useful: a service may collect a lot if the law is sharp, the aim is named, and a person can still find a judge. A service may not collect a lot because the times feel dark.
After 1945 the split between police and intelligence was a design choice, not a mood. Police act in the open and answer to criminal law. Intelligence works in secret and is supposed to stop short of the door. When the door opens without a classic warrant, the design is under strain. That is the core of Bünger’s warning, and it is also the core of the GFF’s August brief. Neither group has to be right about every clause for the question to be fair: who signs the paper before a home is entered, and who finds out after?
There is a technology layer as well. Once a service may reach phones and train models on the data it already holds, the line between “one target” and “a pool of people who look like the target” gets thin. Germany is already testing machine tools on other files. In July the cabinet approved a draft that would let migration offices train systems on asylum and residence data. That bill is separate. The pattern is not. See Germany AI Asylum Bill: Efficiency Drive or Digital Control Shift?.
Other countries, same argument
Berlin says it is catching up. Partner services in France, Britain and the United States already run active cyber steps and closer home surveillance under their own laws. That is true as a headline and incomplete as a defence. Each of those countries also has its own court fights, leak scandals and watchdog reports. Matching a partner’s toolkit is not the same as matching a partner’s brakes.
The same week this debate opened, Britain’s new prime minister told the United Nations he would build a centre to hunt hostile-state lies. Critics there reached for another loaded name. The parallel is not legal. It is political: security offices grow when fear is named, and speech about “defence of democracy” is then used on both sides. A short read on that British fight is here: UK Information Centre: Russia Shield or Speech Police?.
Surveillance hardware is also a market. Police forces buy vans, phone tools and camera kits from firms that sell to many flags. A recent Texas purchase of Israeli-made intercept vans shows how fast a tool becomes normal once the invoice is paid: FalcoNet Spy Vans: What Texas Police Bought and Why It Matters. Oslo, for a smaller example, has already moved to keep schoolchildren off smart glasses that feed data to a platform: Oslo Bans Smart Glasses in Schools Over Meta Data Collection. None of those stories prove the German bill is a secret police. They show the same question in other rooms: who holds the switch, and how do you know?
Facts that are settled, and facts that are not
Settled, as of 25 September 2026:
- The cabinet approved a draft in August 2026 to widen BND and BfV powers.
- The first Bundestag debate was 24 September 2026. The bill went to the Interior Committee.
- The government wants the law in force in early 2027. Both chambers must still vote.
- Dobrindt called the change a new era and wants “genuine” services with active tools.
- Curio used “Stasi 2.0.” Bünger used “new German secret police.” Von Notz called wide BfV powers a grave mistake but backed a stronger BND.
- The BfV’s “confirmed extremist” stamp on the AfD is frozen by a Cologne court while the case proceeds.
- AfD won 43.8 percent in Saxony-Anhalt and 38.3 percent in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in September 2026.
Not settled:
- The final wording of “certain circumstances” for secret entry and device access.
- Whether the Constitutional Court will leave the domestic pieces standing.
- How the Independent Control Council will work in real files, not in speeches.
- Whether the Bundesrat, where state governments sit, will slow the bill after the eastern votes.
Threats named by the government are not imaginary. Germany has seen sabotage talk, drone scares and cases the BfV itself calls plots by foreign services. One recent file around a drone-maker living in hiding is here: German Drone CEO Lives in Hiding After Alleged Russian Plot. A state can face real plots and still write a bad law. A party can win elections and still be a target of lawful watch. Those two sentences can sit in the same article without a referee picking a winner.
How to read the next months
Committee work will be the real bill. First readings are theatre. Amendments will decide whether a home entry needs a judge every time, whether the person is told later, whether data trained into a model can be pulled back, and whether the BND’s new sabotage power stops at foreign soil or leaks home through shared networks.
Watch three clocks. One is the Constitutional Court, which has already cut spy laws and will be asked again. One is the Bundesrat, where eastern state votes now weigh more. One is the AfD case in Cologne. If the service that wants new keys is also the service fighting the largest opposition party in court, every clause will be read as politics even when the drafter swears it is only security.
The curiosity gap is not “is Germany becoming East Germany.” That is a slogan. The real gap is smaller and sharper: can a democracy give its spies hands as well as eyes without turning the spy service into a second police force that never knocks? The government says yes, if the threat is hybrid and the controls are new. The opposition says no, because the controls move in the same bill as the keys, and because this particular domestic service already has a fight with the voters who just rose in the east.
Readers can hold both files. A country can need better cyber defence. A country can also remember why it once forbade its spies to walk through the front door. The vote is not due this week. The argument is.
Primary sources
- Bundestag first reading and bill summary, 24 September 2026: bundestag.de — Reform des Nachrichtendienstrechts
- RT report of the same debate, 24 September 2026: Merz government wants ‘secret police’ – opposition
- DW on the August cabinet draft: Unconstitutional? German intelligence to receive more powers
- AP on the cabinet vote, 12 August 2026: Germany wants to give its intelligence services more powers
- The Telegraph, 30 July 2026, on plans to stop regional blockages of NATO moves: Merz’s secret plan to stop German ‘traitor states’ blocking Nato troops
Original source for this brief: RT, 24 September 2026, updated 24 September 2026, https://www.rt.com/news/646215-merz-government-secret-police/, cross-checked the same day against the Bundestag text archive and August reporting by DW and AP.
Note for fact-checkers: RT is financed by the Russian state and should not be used as a lone source. The quotes and the shape of the bill in that piece match the Bundestag sitting report and the August cabinet coverage in German and Western wires. Where this article uses “secret police,” it is repeating words spoken on the floor by named members, not adopting them as a finding. Court labels on the AfD remain under judicial freeze. Election shares are public results. The July “secret plan” item comes from The Telegraph and Die Welt, not from a released federal law. Draft powers can shrink or grow in committee. Nothing here is a call to break the law or to treat any party as above the law.
Original article: Germany Spy Reform: Secret Police Warning or Security Need? on Planet Today 🚀
Automatically republished from the main blog.