Page 2: Green politician calls for a more robust approach

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The BND Vice President largely agrees with his supervisor on this point: Konstantin von Notz, Chairman of the Parliamentary Control Committee for the Intelligence Services, called for a "more robust approach." According to the Green politician, this applies to the handling of TikTok as well as many other problems that originate in less well-meaning states. The realization that the world will not be the same in the next 30 years as it is today is hard for many people, according to PKGr Chairman von Notz. Interested parties would exploit this.

He also does not understand why everything in the area of social media is being allowed to continue, said von Notz. Instead, a tough regulatory framework is needed. It is "objectively crazy" to ignore this vector of attack. According to von Notz, you cannot forbid people from seriously believing "bullshit" that is beyond any intellectual consensus – and cited the "flat earthers" as an example. What is new, however, is that cynics such as X-owner Elon Musk are given a completely free hand, that they are even courted and that his idiosyncratic statements are treated as opinions to be taken seriously.

One person in Potsdam called for action, but also for caution when intervening: Georg Mascolo, former editor-in-chief of Der Spiegel and a reporter for many years. For too long, however, the media had been more concerned with the threat to their business models and too little with their credibility. However, he is concerned that polarization is now a good business model in the media sector. "Basically, the problem is the omission, the suppression, the creation of a certain kind of reality," says Mascolo. However, interfering with freedom of expression is always tricky in Western democracies, and there are obviously "no magic recipes".

BND had Musk's company launch satellites into space

Mascolo used an example to illustrate how complicated the relationship with conspiracy theorists and their supporters is: the BND had already booked rocket transport with Musk's company SpaceX to launch satellites into space, the journalist recalled, which BND Vice President Dag Baehr confirmed. To which intelligence controller von Notz referred with a smile to the Flat Earth believers: if the Earth is a disc, we should probably think again.

At the end of the conference, the Federal CIO and State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) Markus Richter once again called for the multidimensional nature of the threat situation to be recognized. It had been a mistake not to organize the components for internal security and civil defence in the special fund for the Bundeswehr. Now we have to move financially "from tree slice to tree slice", said Richter. If, for example, the logistics did not work in an emergency, the special fund would be of little use.

Government radio only operates on borrowed NATO frequencies

In this context, Richter also referred to the problem of radio frequencies that are currently used for digital public authority radio: These are currently located in the military radio spectrum and are only borrowed from it with reservations. In the event of a necessary redeployment of troops through Germany, fire departments, police and civil protection services could suddenly find themselves without usable radio spectrum. The BMI is currently trying to persuade the federal states responsible for broadcasting to agree to the plan to use spectrum areas in the VHF band that are currently used for the media. Among other things, for the authorities' digital radio.

(fds)