NEW POWERS FOR THE BORDER POLICE: CHECKS ANYWHERE AT ANY TIME
Since 1 September, the German Border Protection Police, BGS (Bundesgrenzschutz) is authorised to carry out random checks, i.e. checks not prompted by suspicion, on persons almost anywhere inside the country. The BGS is a security force under the Interior Ministry, originally tasked with border protection and riot control.
The new stringent powers of the BGS were introduced last summer as part of a legal package on "internal security" presented by the then Federal Interior Minister, Manfred Kanther, as a necessary means to combat organised crime, especially illegal immigrants and immigrant smugglers, as well as couriers carrying illicit money and money launderers.
Under the new law, anybody can be subjected to an identity check on trains, in railway stations, on motorways, and in city centres. People can be required to open their baggage and to declare their possession of cash. Beyond being subjected to an ID check, anybody can be searched and brought to a police station for criminal identification (including fingerprinting) on the grounds of "concrete elements of suspicion". BGS officers can invoke these catch-all grounds, for instance, when a traveller gives no or unsatisfactory answers to their questions, shows an unusual behaviour, or does not bear an identity document.
In a BGS information leaflet distributed on railway stations, airports and border crossing points, travellers are warned that checks unprompted by suspicion can take place "anywhere in the Federal Republic of Germany". For example, harmless tourists taking a rest at a service area along a German motorway can now expect to be checked and questioned by officers of mobile BGS units roaming all places in the country regarded as "risk zones" of illegal immigration and trafficking by the Customs and the BGS.
The price to pay for greater security?
In Germany, this new practice of carrying out extensive "pro-active" checks of non-suspects is called "veil search" (Schleierfahndung). The new powers for the BGS were introduced with the support of the Social Democrats (SPD). Otto Schily, then Home Affairs speaker of the SPD, and now Interior Minister in Gerhard Schröder’s centre-left government, brushed away criticism from civil liberties organisations and MPs from his own party against the arbitrary character of the checks. "Criminal prosecution measures sometimes hit the wrong persons", Mr Schily admitted, but said this was the price to pay for greater security.
According to the German weekly magazine, Der Spiegel, the new law on "veil search" is just a further step in making the 35,000 person BGS force an elite troop for the fight against money laundering, immigrant smuggling and other forms of "organised crime" and eventually making it a federal police force under the orders of the Interior Minister.
One of the main arguments of the advocates of the new BGS powers is the alleged need for "compensatory measures" for the protection of public order and security, in view of the steady abolition of internal border controls within the European Union. "What the border police are no longer allowed to do at the border, they are now to do everywhere inside the country", Der Spiegel sums up.
DNA register
The law authorising "veil searches" is just one measure of a whole package of legislation introduced this year with a view to fighting against crime and improving "internal security". In April, a central automated DNA register was set up at the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation, BKA (Bundeskriminalamt). The new register was subsequently put on a statutory basis by a law adopted by the Federal Parliament in July. The register enables genetic analyses based on automated data-matching of DNA samples taken not only from persons suspected or convicted of serious violent crimes but also from petty criminals who, in the assessment of a judge, are likely to commit further offences.
Another law adopted this year crucially reduces the level of data protection in the domains of welfare and health care. Under the law, social welfare and public health authorities are to be sent criminal search lists by the police and are under obligation to report data on wanted offenders found in their own databases to the police.
Early this year, the Federal Parliament also adopted a controversial law on the so-called " grosser Lauschangriff", providing for extended eavesdropping inside private rooms (see FECL No.54: "Bugging bedrooms: new law on audio and video surveillance").
Civil liberties groups in Germany have voiced strong concern about these new powers for the police which, they say, are not effective means to fight against crime, but are instead progressively undermining citizens’ constitutional rights and freedoms.
Sources : Der Spiegel No. 27/98 ; Süddeutsche Zeitung, 12.7.98, 2.9.98; Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 9/10.5.98.