Austria's interior minister wants to spy on messengers
Austria's secret services are to be given more powers to infiltrate malware and use WLAN catchers. This is what the governing ÖVP party is proposing.
(Image: Kurt Bauschardt CC BY-SA 2.0)
Financing malware with taxpayers' money and using it on behalf of the state – this would be permitted by an amendment to the law that Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) has sent for public review . The right-wing conservative politician wants to allow the secret service Directorate of State Security and Intelligence (DSN) to infect foreign computer systems, including cell phones, tablets and cloud servers, in order to spy on messages before encryption or after decryption. The Security Council, an advisory body to the government, has only just spoken out against such federal Trojans.
The use of false mobile phone transmitters, so-called IMSI catchers, is to be expanded. At the same time, false WLAN hotspots (WLAN catchers) would be legalized so that end devices and their data traffic can be spied on (and probably infiltrated) directly, without the help of the network operator. If the secret service happens to find evidence of other crimes during its work, it is to pass this data on to other security authorities without a ban on evidence. In addition, the priority of the intelligence services has been extended: under certain circumstances, the police may not intervene and the criminal investigation department may not start an investigation if this could hinder certain work by the DSN intelligence service.
The Greens, coalition partners of the ÖVP (Austrian People's Party), speak of a "sensitive legal issue"and would like to see a "broad discussion". Anyone can comment on the draft law until September 25. "If the Federal Ministry of the Interior does not receive any comments by this date, it will be assumed that there are no objections to the provisions of the draft," says the ministry.
Election campaign with Taylor Swift
The background to this attempt is the election campaign: on September 29, Austria will elect a new National Council, the most important chamber of the national parliament. The ÖVP wants to position itself as the only security party. The opposition parties SPÖ, FPÖ and NEOS reject the bill, and it is unlikely to be passed before the upcoming election anyway. The draft is certainly the basis for quick decisions or coalition negotiations after the election.
On the other hand, two boys have just been arrested; one of them is suspected of having planned a terrorist attack on a Taylor Swift pop concert in Vienna using stabbing weapons and a homemade explosive device. It is doubtful that he was actually capable of building an effective explosive device. The second person arrested is suspected of connivance and support.
The motive is only partially clear. The two Austrians are said to have radicalized themselves online and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State; they are not said to have any concrete links to the organization.
The first tip-off is said to have come from a foreign intelligence service to the Austrian military intelligence service, the Army Intelligence Office, in July; the civilian DSN was then also informed at the beginning of August. As far as is known, the foreign service is said to have obtained its findings without decrypting encrypted messenger messages; this does not prevent the ÖVP from wanting to authorize the DSN to procure and deploy federal Trojans.