Counter Terrorism File

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Counter-terrorism file is a common standardized central file maintained by the security authorities involved at the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) to investigate or combat international terrorism with reference to the Federal Republic of Germany . The legal basis is the Anti- Terrorism Files Act of December 22, 2006 (ATDG).

In addition to the BKA, the federal police authorities specified in the ordinance pursuant to Section 58 (1) of the Federal Police Act, the state criminal investigation offices , the federal and state constitutional protection authorities , the military counterintelligence service (MAD), the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the customs criminal investigation office are involved in the joint database ( § 1 ATDG).

The file is with the classification level SECRET classified. The hardware for this file ( database server ) is installed at the BKA . The other departments access the file via SINA boxes and SINA thin clients .

The term anti-terrorist database is a political catchphrase . It came up as a result of various Muslim fundamentalist attacks both in the USA and in Europe and was discussed in Germany after the terrorist attacks on July 7, 2005 in London . More generally, such files, data collection methods, and access rights are referred to as Fusion Centers .

Legal policy

After the attempted bomb attacks on July 31, 2006 , the Standing Conference of Interior Ministers and Senators of the Federal States (IMK) supported the then Federal Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble in his efforts to present a bill to set up an anti-terrorist database. In its 181st meeting on September 4, 2006, the IMK advocated collecting, in addition to the basic data required to identify a person, other data that would enable the security authorities to reliably assess the risk, such as

  • belonging to terrorist groups
  • Gun possession
  • Telecommunications and internet data
  • Bank details and lockers
  • School and vocational training - job
  • Marital status - religious affiliation
  • Loss of identification documents
  • Travel movements and known stays in places with a terrorist background (e.g. training camps)

On September 22, 2006, the federal government submitted a draft law, which was passed and promulgated on December 22, 2006 as Article 1 of the Common Files Act. The aim was to make the acquisition and exchange of personal data from the federal and state security authorities more effective and complement established forms of cooperation.

The introduction of the file was decided with the votes of the grand coalition ( CDU / CSU and SPD ). All opposition parties ( Greens , FDP , Linkspartei.PDS ) voted against. While the Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar and the German Lawyers' Association refused because too much data is collected from the environment of those affected and the separation requirement between the police and intelligence services is violated, the German Police Union welcomed the decision. The Green MP Wolfgang Wieland said in the debate that the law breathes “the spirit of the surveillance state .” The jury gave a similar justification for the presentation of the Big Brother Awards 2006 to the Federal Conference of Interior Ministers for its decision of September 4, 2006 to set up the anti-terrorist database .

content

Types of data to be saved

The types of data to be saved are described in more detail in Section 3 ATDG.

In an administrative regulation dated July 3, 2015, the BKA defined more detailed criteria and categories in accordance with Section 3 (4) ATDG on ethnic and religious affiliation, special abilities, current or previous activities and places visited by the person concerned.

In the case of anti-terrorism files, a distinction is made between open and hidden storage. If a search query hits a data record stored in open storage, this is displayed to the inquiring party. If a search query hits a data record stored in hidden storage, then the inquirer receives negative information. Instead, the storing agency receives information about this hit and can decide on its own responsibility whether to contact the requesting agency. It is assumed that the police stations will usually use open storage, the secret services will usually use covert storage.

Extended index file

The counter-terrorism file has been decided as an extended index file. The index file only contains an overview - an index - of data that are in turn stored in other databases, i.e. not the data itself. In contrast to this, a full-text file contains all data from all police and secret service databases. Access to data from all investigative authorities and intelligence services (full text file) is only possible on request, but in urgent cases there is immediate access.

Federal Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble demanded that information about religious affiliation and professional knowledge be stored in the anti-terror database.

Data volume and costs

On the day the basic version of the counter-terrorism file was announced on March 30, 2007, one month after the start of the same, there were already 15,000 files distributed across 334 database files and 511 log files for around 13,000 recorded persons in the database. The majority of the people who have been dated are considered to be harmless - on the other hand, only a small proportion is recorded as "acute threats ". More than three quarters of the suspects are said not to live in Germany. According to estimates in the draft law of October 16, 2006, the financial implementation costs alone are 15.3 million euros and the annual ongoing operation is 6.4 million euros. Previously, the national magazine Focus put the launch costs according to heise online at 50 million euros. On March 30th, the data protection officer of North Rhine-Westphalia, Bettina Sokol , announced that the annual costs for the technical backup of the database for this state amount to 380,000 euros. On the same day, Schäuble announced that the costs, contrary to the lower figures in the draft law, amount to 5.4 million euros a year for the federal government and a further 3.0 million euros for the federal states. As of June 6, 2011, the total number of personal records stored in the counter-terrorism database was 18,280, although the number of stored persons was lower because individual persons could have been stored by different authorities.

Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court

Following a complaint by a former judge, the Federal Constitutional Court has been examining since November 6, 2012 whether the anti-terror database is compatible with the Basic Law. The plaintiff criticized u. a. a possible confusion of information from secret services and police, as well as the vague wording of the law. As a result, innocent citizens could also be recorded in the file without their knowledge. The review was u. a. greeted by the police union .

The ruling issued on April 24, 2013 considered the establishment of a counter-terrorism file as a composite file for various security authorities to be compatible with the constitution in its basic structures. From the basic rights, however, follows an informational separation principle that only allows the exchange of data between the police authorities and intelligence services in exceptional cases. The ATDG is not completely sufficient, namely with regard to the determination of the authorities involved, the scope of the persons recorded as having a connection with terrorism, the inclusion of contact persons, the use of covertly provided extended basic data, the authority of the security authorities to specify the data to be stored and the guarantee of an effective one At sight. The unrestricted inclusion of data in the anti-terror database that was collected through encroachments on the secrecy of letters and telecommunications and the right to inviolability of the home violated Article 10 (1) and Article 13 (1) of the Basic Law.

The court stipulated a transition period until December 31, 2014 for the disputed regulations. The requirements of the Federal Constitutional Court were then implemented by the law of December 18, 2014 as of January 1, 2015, both in the Anti-Terrorism File Act and in the Right-Wing Extremism File Act by the Bundestag.

See also

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Anti-Terrorism File  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ordinance on the competence of the federal police authorities (BPolZV) of February 22, 2008, Federal Law Gazette I p. 250
  2. ^ Minutes of resolution on the 181st meeting of the Standing Conference of Interior Ministers and Senators of the Länder on September 4, 2006 in Berlin. (PDF) bundesrat.de, September 4, 2006, accessed December 24, 2014 .
  3. ^ Draft of a law for the establishment of common files by police authorities and intelligence services of the federal and state governments (Common Files Law) BR-Drs. 672/06 of September 22, 2006
  4. ↑ Law on the establishment of common files of police authorities and intelligence services of the federal and state governments (Common Files Law) of December 22, 2006, Federal Law Gazette I p. 3409
  5. ^ Draft of a law for the establishment of common files by police authorities and intelligence services of the federal and state governments (Common Files Law), printed paper 16/2950 of October 16, 2006, p. 12
  6. ↑ netzeitung.de Bush and Blair are said to be in anti-terror files ( Memento from May 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ^ Politics II: Conference of Interior Ministers - BigBrotherAwards. In: bigbrotherawards.de. September 4, 2006, archived from the original on December 24, 2014 ; Retrieved December 24, 2014 .
  8. ↑ Administrative regulation according to § 3 Paragraph 4 of the Anti-Terror File Act (ATDG administrative regulation - ATD-VwV), BAnz AT 07/24/2015 B7
  9. ↑ Bundestag passes anti-terror file. After years of discussion, the Bundestag today passed the controversial anti-terror file of the federal and state governments with a large majority. FDP, Left Party and Greens voted against the register with which terrorism is to be combated. In: Spiegel Online . December 1, 2006, accessed September 3, 2014 .
  10. ↑ tagesschau.de: The anti-terror file (tagesschau.de archive) , March 30, 2007
  11. ^ Counter- Terrorism File: Terrorist Search 2.0. In: Spiegel Online . March 30, 2007, accessed December 24, 2014 .
  12. ↑ a b Stefan Krempl: Schäuble activates anti-terror files - heise online. In: heise.de. March 30, 2007, accessed December 24, 2014 .
  13. ^ Draft of a law for the establishment of common files by police authorities and intelligence services of the federal and state governments (common files law) . (PDF; 360 kB) German Bundestag, October 16, 2006
  14. ^ Detlef Borchers: Interior ministers decide on a two-part anti-terror file. In: heise.de. September 4, 2006, accessed December 24, 2014 .
  15. ↑ NRW data protection officer: worrying development. Doubts about the anti-terrorism file. In: wdr.de. WDR, March 30, 2006, archived from the original on April 19, 2007 ; Retrieved September 18, 2014 .
  16. ↑ Answer of the Federal Government to a small inquiry about the establishment of a visa warning file (PDF) from June 16, 2011, BT Drucksache 17/6223.
  17. ↑ Federal government defends counter-terrorism file before the Constitutional Court. In: welt.de . November 6, 2012, accessed December 24, 2014 .
  18. ↑ BVerfG, judgment of April 24, 2013 - 1 BvR 1215/07 guidelines 1 to 4
  19. ↑ Federal Constitutional Court: Legislators must improve the anti-terror file. In: Spiegel Online . April 24, 2013, accessed December 24, 2014 .
  20. ^ Draft of a law amending the Anti-Terrorism Files Act and other laws BT-Drs. 18/1565 of May 28, 2014
  21. ^ Print by the Constitutional Court: Bundestag decides on changes to anti-terror files. In: Der Spiegel. October 17, 2014, accessed December 16, 2018 .
  22. ↑ Law amending the Anti-Terrorism Files Act and other laws of December 18, 2014, Federal Law Gazette I p. 2318
  23. ↑ cf. on the effects of the BVerfG ruling on ATDG and RED-G: Information from the Federal Government: Evaluation of the Right-Wing Extremism File Act BT-Drs. 18/8060 of April 7, 2016, p. 135 ff.