Spy agency ‘can track net hubs’

BERLIN: Germany’s spy agency can monitor major internet hubs if Berlin deems it necessary for strategic security interests, a federal court has ruled.

In a ruling late on Wednesday, the Federal Administrative Court threw out a challenge by the world’s largest internet hub, the De-Cix exchange, against the tapping of its data flows by the BND foreign intelligence service.

The operator had argued the agency was breaking the law by capturing German domestic communications along with international data.

However, the court in the eastern city of Leipzig ruled that internet hubs “can be required by the federal interior ministry to assist with strategic communications surveillance by the BND”.

De-Cix says its Frankfurt hub is the world’s biggest internet exchange, bundling data flows from as far as China, Russia, the Middle East and Africa.

De-Cix Management GmbH, which is owned by eco Association, the European internet industry body, had filed suit against the interior ministry, which oversees the BND and its strategic signals intelligence.

It said the BND, a partner of the US National Security Agency (NSA), has placed

so-called Y-piece prisms into its data-carrying fibre-optic cables that give it an unfiltered and complete copy of the data flow.

Germany had reacted with outrage when information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that

US agents were carrying out widespread tapping worldwide, including of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.

But to the great embarrassment of Germany, it later emerged that the BND helped the NSA spy on European allies.