German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/233, p.
29977.
Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.
The AfD also sees considerable need for reform of the Constitution
Defense.
Stephan
Thomae (FDP): I can imagine!
Behind this still quite friendly sounding name is hidden
nothing other than a domestic secret service which has been committed to spy
upon and publicly stigmatize political movements with secret service means like
the listening in on telephones and the interception of e-mails. It is thus the
more important that such a service be closely and exclusively bound by statute
and law.
We see a need for action on two levels. For starters, the
legal scope for this service needs to be improved. My delegation has here put
forward two draft laws [Drucksache 19/
30406, 304012] from which I want to
call to attention just two aims in view.
First. Those affected shall receive an essentially improved
right of information so as to ascertain which information concerning them was gathered by
the secret service.
Second. Criminal offenses committed in service by so-called
undercover investigators shall in the future always, apart from quite narrowly
limited exceptions, be reported to the state’s attorney office and by this also
be prosecuted. Presently, the authorities’ administration can look away when it
attributes no considerable significance to the criminal offense, and that is
even for crimes subject to a minimum sentence of one year’s incarceration. That
is unworthy of a state of law.
However a more fundamental need for reform exists at a
second, political level. The Constitution Defense is no neutral institution
like the Federal Audit Authority, but is subsumed by the Interior Ministry and
thus by party politicians. This is a fundamental weaving flaw which needs to be
disentangled; since it is to be feared that not each of the increasingly
leftist-oriented politicians can withstand the attempt to commit this secret
service as a political weapon in an indeed permanently summoned up struggle
against the right. And of that there is a thorough-going example.
With permission of the President, I want to here cite the
former leader of the Federal Office for the Defense of the Constitution, Herr
Maaßen,
André Hahn (Linke): Oh Gott!
Beatrix von
Storch (AfD): Maaßen, nicht Gott!
who in December 2020 in the “Preußischen Allgemeinen Zeitung” said – quote – :
I nevertheless need accordingly state that massive personal pressure was exerted on me to finally observe the AfD. That was an improper, an unaccustomed pressure [ein ungebührlicher, ein ungewöhnlicher Druck] from which I gained the impression that here I should be instrumentalized for partisan political purposes. I even in part felt myself compelled.
Frank Sitta
(FDP): There is an authority to direct.
Here at the latest need really all alarm bells ring out for
you, ladies and gentlemen, even so as for the people out there in the country.
Konstantin
von Notz (Greens): The “Preußischen
Allgemeinen Zeitung” wants that!
Against this background is it to be wondered that the
Constitution Defense increasingly attacks political positions which were
represented 20 years ago by the CDU/CSU when they were still conservative?
Frank Sitta
(FDP): When was that then?
The impression increasingly enforces itself that today’s
Constitution Defense wants to defend the government and its, in many fields,
utterly failed policy against criticism and opposition. Constitution Defense is
however not government defense; since otherwise it would be nothing more than
the continuation of politics by secret service means and thereby in the end
itself be a danger for our democracy. It therefore needs be comprehensively on
the testing stand.
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]
