Federal government: Federal police should be allowed to shoot down enemy drones

The German government launched a reform of the Federal Police Act on Wednesday. The former border guard is to be given extended powers to defend against hostile drones in dangerous situations. Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) explained that in the future, the federal police will be authorized to take measures including physical action such as the “interception and shooting down” of unmanned flying objects.

According to Dobrindt, the previous powers for drone defense were not sufficiently regulated. The German government was responding to the “new type of threat posed by drones” with this program. Previously, sightings at European and German airports, particularly in Munich, had led to cancellations and delays. With this initiative, the executive wants to bring the federal police up to date technically in such cases. They are to be put in a position to take action against drone incidents using electromagnetic pulses, jamming of radio signals, and GPS interference. For example, the connection between the aircraft and the pilot is interrupted.

The government draft specifically provides for an extension of competences to define “in particular the defense against drones with suitable technical means” more clearly in legal terms. The legal text provides for “physical means of influencing the systems,” even if interception and shooting down are not explicitly mentioned.

Differentiation from the Bundeswehr and planned deployment

The Minister of the Interior also announced an amendment to the Aviation Security Act that is not yet ready for finalization. This is intended to authorize the Bundeswehr to combat military drones. The state police forces and the federal police are to be able to take much stronger action against flying objects, but not against combat drones. There was already a draft in the days of the traffic light system, but the Bundestag was unable to pass it.

According to paragraph 38, the federal police should also be allowed to use drones themselves. This refers to the future use of “mobile sensor carriers,” i.e., flying cameras with sound, image, or video recording, to monitor major events, railway stations, railway facilities, and airports. The measure must be open. Special data collection should require a court order.

Section 39 establishes drone defense as a new task of the Federal Police at airports, railway stations, ministries, and on ships. The planned defense technology is complex. The government estimates that the project will cost 25 million Euro per year for the law enforcement agencies' own drones and 90 million Euro for defense systems. According to the plan, 55 new full-time positions will also be created, including for airspace management.

Federal police to be allowed to hack IT systems

At the same time, the executive wants to authorize the federal police to use state Trojans in line with Dobrindt's draft bill. This would even allow them to preventively monitor unsuspected people. Officers would be authorized to eavesdrop on digital communication via encrypted messengers such as WhatsApp, Signal, or Threema, as well as internet phone calls and video calls. However, the protection of the core area of private life demanded by the Federal Constitutional Court must be upheld.

A license for “source tapping” is envisaged. This means that federal police officers would be authorized to secretly hack end devices such as smartphones or computers, install a federal Trojan, and thus record ongoing conversations before encryption or after decryption. The authorization for even more extensive secret online searches of IT systems is not included.

However, law enforcement officers are to be authorized to monitor and record “stored contents and circumstances of communication” on devices if they “could have been monitored and recorded in encrypted form during the ongoing transmission process in the public telecommunications network” from the time of the necessary judge's order. This borders on the particularly controversial “Quellen-TKÜ Plus,” which is still being scrutinized by the Federal Constitutional Court and which already allows the federal and state intelligence services to access stored chats and emails.

(vbr)