 Okay, welcome to this, it's probably going to be somewhat experimental. This is a reading from minutes of the German Parliament's inquiry into the NSA surveillance. And we hope to bring you some of the content and maybe some of the background that you might be missing. Okay, this was just a test whether you're all awake. We'll start again. Stay on the stage. And I'll just add from the translation booth that this is the translators from C3lingo, that's our Twitter account, and our hashtag is C3T. And we'd love to hear from you. These are not valid applicable in space, a reading from the NSA Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry by the German Bundestag mandate of the investigation. The Committee of Inquiry is established. The committee is to consist of eight members and eight deputies. The committee instigated by press reports, in particular, are the constants of the Snowden revelations into telecommunications surveillance from the time, starting from early 2001, to what extent secret services of the so-called Five Eyes states have captured communications from, towards, through Germany, and in what way data was evaluated by the states or third parties, and to what extent the German government and the German Commission on Security in IT knew of these activities or took measures against that. Dear ladies and gentlemen, I will now open the first session of the Committee of Inquiry of the 18th Parliament. The Committee of Inquiry will take its evidence in public sessions, and the publicity has been established, and I will now welcome the members of the press, in particular, and I'm happy that you're here supporting us with this important topic. Günther Oettinger, now the EU's Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, and the functionaries. Says the slide. Süddeutsche Zeitung, leading German newspaper, 27th of November 2014. If you want to be sure to be left alone by the BND, the Exterior Secret Service of Germany, you should not do one thing, go abroad and work for a German company or an international organization, because that makes you a functionary and, therefore, open fair game for surveillance. If you communicate into another country, the service will no longer care whether it's a German Belgian or whoever is sending a fax in the name of that organization. The German person isn't only protected if he or she is communicating privately from the office. This is a construction that the BND came up with to be able to spy on foreign organizations without freely. The condition was working for a foreign company or an international organization. Tell me, Mr. W.O., you have been working for the BND in Bad Eibling, the eavesdropping station since 2005, and your task was selector evaluation. If you got in dress such as Günther.Oettinger at ec.eu, how would you deal with that? Mr. W.O., we cannot hear you. Before you were tasked with large-scale selector evaluation, which was in 2013, before that, that address would be in our system. You have self-declared as a word database wizard or pope, and you have been dealing with selector filtering. Was Günther.Oettinger on the selector's list before 2013, one that should not have yielded any results? We can't know whether it's on there. If we don't know an address, we cannot recognize it now or pick it out either. If it's just about an e-mail address, yes, but Oettinger in itself is a term, a known term. It's a beer brand, for example. It's a German name. Oettinger is something we do not have as a search criterion. Mr. M., how do you know that Oettinger is not on the selector list? How can you exclude that? We will not discuss individual names here. This cannot be included. Couldn't you realize that the NSA wants to drink bad beer? Yeah. Mr. Heis. The Oettinger example keeps giving us joy, but let's stay on an abstract level. A German person working for a foreign company abroad. There is that differentiation on whether someone communicates professionally, which means unprotected or privately, right? Yes, that is the functionary theory, which is now being evaluated internally with us. But Mr. Heis, what if a German works for an EU institution? How then would you regard that as a secret service coordinator in the chancellery? This could be discussed, but we haven't decided on this yet. Mr. Carl, you've said that the U.S. were not a surveillance target. Is it still possible that selectors towards the U.S. that they could be targeted at the U.S., or would that be a problem on the... I cannot give any information on concrete telecommunication criteria. I didn't ask in a concrete way. I was asking in a general way. If a telecommunication pattern was to be connected to terrorism, hang on, Mr. Carl. You are pressing the view that Mr. Sipansky said, if a French person is a jihadist, is it the French citizenship that's in the foreground? Yes. So Mr. Sipansky is right. Yes. Oh, that's interesting. Someone thinks that you're right there. Mr. Carl, is that the case with Germans too? If someone is a functionary jihadist, well, you'll have to differentiate here between someone abroad and whether the G-10 law, which restricts the secrecy of telecommunications, whether that applies. Mr. Carl, before you are questioned by our community, you can have an introductory statement about the whole thing if you want. Thank you, Mr. Head of the Committee. I want to make use of that opportunity. I have compiled a report. In the last few months, I looked at 50,000 selectors that were rejected by the NSA and I have talked about those in the report. I worked in the BND office because I was dealing with strictly classified material, which is why I also had support by the BND. How was that number of selectors arrived at, which I was looking at? All selectors were filtered by the DAFIS system. 40,000 selectors were rejected. And the DAFIS system, for reasons of secrecy, I can only talk about in a very broad sense. There are three stages. The first stage filters out German telephone area codes and top-level domains. The first stage is the so-called G-10 positive list, which is derived from experience. All cases we checked where the BND has noticed that German subjects are behind them are on that stage. The third stage filters selectors that could violate the German interests. This is the one that is most difficult and that has historically grown. It was always extended when employees of the BND saw cases that did not belong to either stage one or stage two. Mr. Graulich, have members of the European Parliament been subsided upon? I cannot talk about details of those selectors. That's not in my purview. Mr. Graulich, has a German member of the European Parliament legally protected from being surveilled? That's a good question. Thank you. Of course European fundamental rights apply, but I haven't checked that. I would say that from the point of view of the German constitutions, probably not. Mr. Graulich, if targets such as EU institutions, governments of other EU member states with the help of the NSA and the BND were conducting espionage, how would you evaluate that? Well, I think that your wording is not quite correct. To call that help or support for the NSA is not something I would share. I don't much care about that. I repeat, has the NSA with the help of the BND been conducting political espionage from an international law point of view, espionage is permissible? I do see no violation of the law here. Mr. Graulich, you say that espionage is allowed in any form, yes. But not everything that's allowed is forbidden. Do you see the fundamental right of secrecy of communications as violated by the NSA? Because I see no, and in Germany no. Mr. Graulich, part of what you've wrote in your expertise has been written by the BND as well. Don't you see it as a problem that this hasn't been marked? In particular sentences that you straight copied from the NSA, shouldn't that have been marked? You are assuming things, you're not asking me questions. Mr. Graulich, do you think it's okay if an expertise by the BND appears verbatim in your expertise? Well, those parts just comply with my own views. The first has found the following. Now, this is about curing Edward Snowden as a witness. So when will Mr. Snowden come? Their Spiegel, leading German news magazine in 2014, December, I think. The BND has cooperated with another large U.S. service to capture data from Germany. In 2005, the BND contacted the German daughter of the U.S. provider NSI and asked for communication data from their subsidiary in Düsseldorf. This international company then checked with the American headquarters and agreed to a cooperation with the involvement of the American service NSA. The data were copied from the provider's office to a BND office and then processed. At that point, that office had the cover name, Mr. Pofallar, who was the chief head of the German Chancery. Do you know Klo Teich, which is the cover name? One of the cover names that was mentioned in that Spiegel report. Mr. Pofallar, I asked you whether you know Klo Teich. I'll spell it out for you. G-L-O-T-I-A-I-C Klo Teich, which the last three letters apparently stand for NSA. Good day, Mr. F. You are the leader of the BND office in Reinhausen. In a Spiegel report, there's information about the Klo Teich operation that was supposed to have taken place in that BND office. Is that true? This can only be discussed in a closed session. Okay, I'll reword this. Do you know the Spiegel report about Klo Teich? I have read it, yes. But you cannot confirm anything true. Mr. F, why aren't you going to talk about this? I have not given myself permission to talk. We, of course, place great value on permissions to talk. Now, concerning ICON, there was an attitude that was friendly towards giving information. Is that now a change of mind by the government? We cannot even name the full name of the operation in the committee. Does the word Klo mean anything to you? Yes. From the period of investigation or from the newspaper, from the period of the investigation. Okay, Mr. F, when did you hear about it? Well, sometime between 2004 and 2006. All right. And how did you learn of it? That was through an order from the headquarters. What was that about? Well, that I cannot talk about in the public session. Okay, now back to the task from the headquarters. Were you, as the leader of this office, solely responsible for the execution of this? Or were several BND people tasked with it, only in secret session? Was it about telephone fax or cable communication, not public? Was communication that was not cable-based investigated? No. So, if I now just logically deduce things from it, only about cable-bound communications? Well, that is your conclusion. I cannot, in the public session, expand on this. Mr. F, was Klo Tijk a covered operation? Yes. What does that mean? I cannot say. But the covered operation, that is a fixed technical term. Yes, well, that has budgetary reasons. Mr. F, is also saying who knew about this operation included in this? Mr. F, who is not allowed to know about this? Anyone who was not concerned with this? Drones and the headquarters for inquiries? Difficult to translate, the slide says. The Süddeutsche Zeitung, 21st of September 2015. Death of a camel shepherd. A Somali was about 50 years old when he was hit, when he died near Mogadishu in February 2012. The body was ripped apart, but his face was to recognizable. Six of his camels were also killed. He was the victim of a U.S. drone attack, which would not have been possible without support from German bases. In Rammstein, the data is being transmitted, and also there is a flight control center and a control center for drone attacks. The American drones and the German government, that apparently doesn't know anything, that's a long story. Stereotypically and routinely the German government has claimed that they had no information about U.S. operations or planned operations in Germany. They had no evidence for nothing. Like a small boy playing hide and seek, who insists that he doesn't see his fat friend behind the tree a joke. Now, you've probably noticed this already on the slides. Now we see the inquiring member of the committee, which is now the conservative member in this case and the person being inquired, an ex-drone pilot of the U.S. Air Force. My name is Brandon Bryant. I am 29 years old and a former drone pilot of the U.S. Air Force. People were killed and I was part of that machine. Many innocents have paid a price for that. We all are responsible in the future to prevent similar things happening in the future. Rammstein in Germany made the killing possible. It was a signal relay base for the whole Middle East. Mr. Bryant, for what kind of signals, which data was transmitted via Rammstein? All data, every single bit of data that was exchanged between the airplane and the crew. Everything was rooted via Rammstein. You even had to fire up in your satellite because sickness from Yemen were not covered at first. So, Mr. Bryant, the drone operations did not go via other countries in Germany? Yes, exactly. Just to be sure, would a drone operation not have been possible to run by any other countries in Germany because of the technical capabilities that are here? Yes, the technical capabilities are the real reason and it's also related to the place. There is easy access, whatever you want to have, you can get the information from Rammstein and spread it in the easiest way distributed. Mr. Schulz from the German Foreign Office. To what extent does the German Foreign Office know about Rammstein being responsible for controlling drones? The commanding generals in Rammstein have assured us that via Rammstein, no drones would be controlled. In the previous session, we had the witness, Brandon Bryant, and he confirmed what you said, but he also said that Rammstein had a central role as a relay station for transmitting the data. I know the media reports, the ones from Bryant as well, we'd asked the Americans about this, that they didn't respond. Well, what? Didn't they want to or could they not? We were asking about press reports actively and all that they said was they could not talk about operative details, operational details. You'd surely know the data, the sentence we kill people based on metadata. Now, with 500 million metadata that the BND transmits the yes every month, can you, as the head of the Bud-Eibling eavesdropping station, that they are used for drone operations, Mr. RU? Mobile phone cell data are far too imprecise to fly concrete drone operations. Mr. Bryant, I'm asking myself, I'm asking you whether a drone can be directed towards a target from metadata? Yes. Where in this process is the mobile phone relevant? From metadata you can derive the geolocation. They help with target acquisition. My second shooting was from metadata. We had signals from a phone tracking and decided to shoot. If Germany passes on data, then that can be used to execute people. Mr. Bryant, do you know cases like this? Yes, there is a case of which I know. Germany gave information to the yes that led to someone being killed. People were killed via a drone strike. The second was metadata used for this particular drone strike. Metadata was what Germany had previously given. 19th of March 2014, another German paper. The disputed BND units will be dissolved. The central office for inquiries has been working for a long time. In November 2014, there had been reports about BND agents systematically inquiring refugees in asylum homes or refugee homes. The results were shared with the U.S. which then were used among others for drone and fighter plane attacks. The headquarters for inquiries had played a central role as they led initial interviews and then intense interviews with suspects. Mrs. Kay, you were the former head of the headquarters for inquiries. What was the task here with asylum seekers? To gather information about central policy issues and issues of supply. You had interviews from Germany and other countries from where foreign secret services from the U.S.? Yes. Have the U.S. interviewers conducted interviews by themselves or were BND staff always present? The rule in principle was that there would be team interviews with the BND. Now from a staffing point of view, that wasn't 100% followed. I will give you a document. Unfortunately, the obligation for mixed teams has negative consequences. The lack of German teams has negative consequences and Mrs. Kay agreed to an intern taking the role of the German representative. Yes. Why did you agree to that? We thought we had a lack of staff and were looking for a way out. So we had experienced interviewers who were experienced employees who were not interviewers or sometimes interns as well. Mrs. Kay, if asylum seekers were interviewed, what was the purpose that was stated to the interviewed people? I don't know, I never took part in an interview myself. Mrs. Kay, I find it surprising that you never took part in an interview. Yes. Have you never even listened or watched? No. Never? No. What did you do the whole day? I controlled and I read the files about the inquiries. Mrs. Kay, what would be a relevant information of particular value in such an interview? The mobile phone number of a known terrorist? No. Information about the bread supply situation? Networks, terror cells, contacts are not asked for? No. It needs a secret service corporation to ask about bread prices? Well, Mrs. Kay, that surely is at least as interesting as information about militia leadership or wouldn't you exclude mobile phone numbers from the inquiry? I didn't understand that. Well, I repeat, would you, during an interview, seriously say that we do not want the mobile phone number of a terrorist? We would rather know about the bread price. I would be shocked if that was true. I hope that you're being paid to look for terrorists. If not, then I will longer feel safe in this country. I have some documents here that say something quite different about mobile phone numbers. I will hand them to you for the files. The classified documents reference number is being said. You can see that, in doubt, the bread price to me could be a collateral. No, no, the bread price can actually turn to an uprising. Do you really think that that was the big extra value that the Americans would have from a joint interview? Is that not something missing, Mrs. Kay? That was what the corporation was about. So it would consist of nothing. That's what you're saying, right? There was the participation in the information gathered in Germany. Well, what kind of information? About politics. So what the head of state of Syria would be, or what? Now about the political mood. The political mood? Is that not something you could find out yourself? Well, you can get some confirmation, couldn't you? Well, you know, Mrs. Kay, I am baffled. What you say there is beyond the truth. Perhaps you would just like to protect your authority. Mrs. Kay, how during the inquiries were the results documented by audiotape, paper and pen? Paper and pen were our regular work tools. With the Americans too, or did they have computers? They had computers too. Mrs. Kay, the Germans as well? Yes. I will explain, just to illustrate, as an auxiliary tool, computers were used. Well, the theme or the idea was Google Earth, perhaps. We asked, is this in that region the right one? Is this the location of hospital? Mr. Bryant. The American military secret services has sometimes worked in Germany without the BND Corporation and been interviewing people and using maps. Have you ever seen such maps? Was that relevant in the drone strikes that you were? Well, we were using Google Earth and satellite imagery to see operational areas from which sources those were, I don't know. Mr. Bryant, did you ever receive material that had been previously marked? Yes. Mrs. Kay, I will now hand you a document. Do you still say that no phone numbers were passed on to the U.S.? I only would like to respond to this in a non-public session. No, Mrs. Kay, you won't, so do you stick to... She's conferring. From my knowledge, nothing was passed on. But were phone numbers registered, Mrs. Kay? Now, on the basis of this document, I'm pointing to your application to veracity. Well, perhaps numbers were registered. If you know this, Mrs. Kay, you have to say that otherwise this is a false witness. Of course, you can only remember what she says. You don't remember that telephone numbers were registered? No. Mrs. Kay, you started a sentence a moment ago and didn't finish it, and the sentence was not that no phone numbers were registered. She only said that because you very strictly asked her, I, as her legal counsel, object to this. I don't remember phone numbers being registered. Mrs. Kay, this seems to be like you're kind of covering yourself. We have information that data that you acquired was used to kill people. And then you say, we cannot hand on the coordinates like that. This is about a drone strike, not about an asylum seeker fainting. Have you registered phone numbers? I don't know. Have the Americans registered phone numbers? I cannot say. Have phone numbers ever been, were phone numbers ever discussed? It was not asked to ask about phone numbers. Mrs. Kay, from a certain point in time, has the BND only passed on scramble geo-coordinates? Well, the data wasn't scrambled. I don't mind how you call it, how you call it, but from when on was this, that's what I want to know. I don't know. Well, we would be happy with just a little information. Was this at the beginning or the end of your term? Mrs. Kay, was there a certain moment from which the data, the handing on of the data was changed, the strategy, was at the beginning or the end of your term of office? I don't know. So you were handing on false data just like that? There was no false data. Mrs. Kay, have the Americans ever complained? As far as I know, no. How would they have known anyway? How could they have found out? For example? Because they didn't hit their targets? It's getting less and less likely that you know why, and when geo-coordinates were manipulated. Mrs. Kay, we have information from secret files. We don't know quite well what the occasion was. Mrs. Kay, who died? I don't know. I don't believe that. We have asked you to Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. What was the reason that geo-locations were not used for target query? What was the reason? I don't remember. We don't believe you. Mrs. Kay, have you inquired with refugees? I don't remember. Mrs. Kay, what is the legal base for your activities? The BND law, Mrs. Kay, that is not sufficient. You need to know if you weren't a legal person, you directed the office. No, I directed the cover-up operation. Mrs. Kay, this is really very creative. There has to be a law for this. Well, then you have to give me a law. It can take a moment. Actually, so let me check this. That's right. It could take a while. I would say there is no basis in law. It is apparently not possible for your house to find this law. November 6, 2012, there was an email to you which mentions an internal coordination to a parliament inquiry for the protocol. The number... It's hard to find a base in law to answer this. I cannot refer to paragraph 4 for A and other laws. It's... Paragraph 8 doesn't work either because it's only for transmission to other offices. Mrs. Kay, you've been here twice now. How did you prepare for the second visit? I read the protocol of the first session. The shorthand protocol. Did you talk with anybody? Well, primarily, I thought... Oh, Mrs. Kay, did you speak with somebody? Well, I always talk with somebody. Mrs. Kay, who did you talk to? We just talked in general. Who did you talk with in general? With former colleagues. Are these colleagues still active? Yes. Did you approach them? Well, we had private conversations. Did these colleagues possibly read the live blog of netspolitik.org and asked themselves, Mrs. Kay, what's happening to you here? Yes. Well, yes, we... We talked about netspolitik.org. Look at that. This page just brings people together. I would ask that the inquiry be closed for today. Mrs. Kay, this is not... You can't just ask for it. We need a consultation here. Well, Hacker Jeopardy is in the other hall. Taking place right now. So, Mrs. Kay, do you have any questions? Yes, right now. Mrs. Kay, if you're unable to continue, that's fine. Actually, that's right. I can't continue. Well, Mrs. Kay... You'll have to assume that we'll ask you again to appear. Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 3rd, 2013. The Big Ear of the BND. It's one of the most mysterious buildings in Bavaria. With a big antenna, they are listening all the way to Afghanistan, as they say. It's a difficult search for proof. Mr. A.N., you direct the BND affiliate in Gablingen. What sort of traffic is being... Sorry, in Gablingen. This is shortwave transmissions. I think this is classified. Shortwave transmission is not part of this investigation. Yes. Is it single transmissions only, or is this a bulk capture? That's not part of the investigation. What would be part of the investigation? Well, if Mr. Wolf of the... ...tells me, then this would be part of the investigation. No, that's not how it works. I would like to stay to my... Mr. N., the signals that you captured on shortwave... ...are these of military origin or of civilian origin? I will only talk about this in closed sessions. Well, that cannot be a state's secrecy. Wikipedia talks about what shortwave is good for. If you're telling me it's military or civil... ...that certainly won't harm security of the state of Germany. Well, just because Wikipedia says it, that's not a reason... ...for me denying or confirming effect. I'm asking you, in very general, as a technician... ...which other transmission other than shortwave are there? Well, this is not part of the investigation. I don't have to answer this. I'll ask again. Do you know whether Goebblingen has other ways of capturing things? That is not part of the investigation. But we have information on this. What sort of... how many data are captured? This is not part of the investigation. I ask for a break in the consultation. Okay, you will get five minutes. Mr. Chair, that's not enough to go to the canteen. But you get all the food you need. But Mr. Chair, we are exhausted. Well, I'm going to get you some sugar so you perk up. Mr. N, was the antenna Goebblingen a former U.S. entity? That wasn't a really hard question, Mr. N. Well, the question isn't hard to answer. However, it is outside of the period that we're talking about. Mr. N. Goebblingen was operated by the U.S. Army before it was given to the BNT. Well, that is before the period that we're talking about. Well, you leave a foot in the door, you never quite leave. Are there any other Americans in Goebblingen or visit or maybe appear covered? Well, that's a very general question. What does it have to do with the investigation? Quite a bit. We are looking at the cooperation of the BND with the Five Eyes organizations no matter how they're covered. So do Five Eyes employees come to visit? I have understood the investigation scope, its data retention. Well, please treat the witness respectfully. I also ask the witness to treat this committee with respect. We have to stop this investigation. The name in the clear of the witness was just... Twittered by a member of the Left Party faction. Actually, it was in the SeeDodge at Zeitung 2013 already. So tell me, Mr. N. Do you know of Iconal or Glow? Well, actually just from the press. Was Goebblingen involved in these operations? Have you ever asked? No, why would I ask? I wasn't really interested. I just read cursory parts of the blog. I need a break now. Two minutes? Ten minutes? Well, five minutes. No, ten minutes. I have and has five minutes. You know that the witness name has now changed on the slide to the full version? Alois Nubauer. So this was six minutes. I would like to start now. Where is the witness? Can the office of the Chancellor help bring the witness? Police has been asked to bring him in. That is not a joke here. We're not joking. Well, here you are. Let's continue. So in Goebblingen, do you also do translation services? Yes. Do you do that or is it... In part, it happened with us. But, you know, really, I don't have to talk about this because it's not scope of the investigation. Say, Mr. N, do you think that this is a fun thing here? No, I'm just... I don't like to be here. Yes, we have that impression as well, but it can't be helped. Why does transmission... Why is it not part of the investigation? I'll help you. We are in the Bundestag. It is Wednesday. You are the only witness that says this isn't scope of the investigation. I would like to be nice to you, but tell me, why is shortwave not part of this investigation? I need to talk with my legal counsel. How long is this going to last? Terrible. I don't think I have to talk about this, but to be nice to the committee. Shortwave transmission capture in Goebblingen There's no other Five Eyes organizations involved. Therefore, it's not part of this investigation. Mr. N, you have been here a couple of sessions ago. Have you ever gotten feedback from the BND after your last visit here? Let me guess. It's not part of the investigation? Exactly. I knew you'd say this. The Space Theory. We should explain. This was about a theory mentioned in these investigations by the exterior service, the BND, that capturing data via satellites was not covered or did not underlie the rules of the German constitution because the actual capturing was taking place in space outside the jurisdiction of the German constitution, which is, of course, a very interesting construction. Now, Zeit newspaper. Zeit, 14 November 2014. The BND has to operate within the bounds of law, but which version of it? The BND apparently decides itself which laws apply and which not. From his perspective, that seems to be very handy, but the law doesn't make that distinction. If somebody decides for himself, we can put away with laws. If the BND thinks the constitution only works for him when... The civil servants are rooted firmly on the ground with both their feet. Now, the Data Protection Commissioner of the BND is being inquired. My name is HF. I'm a full legal counsel, and since two and a half years I've been a data privacy officer. I am reporting to the president. I do regular checks of data privacy. Data privacy in the BND is not present in all parts of the BND. I am not technical. I get demonstrations. I'm not a computer scientist, but I have a technical officer in the team. I just believe in technical things. I can't check them. Data collection about Eiblingen is all... This does not fall under the BND law. Because it's not in Germany. Foreign satellites are being... You've stopped upon, for example, Afghanistan and Pakistan. So that's in a foreign country, and the BND law does not apply. I have a different idea or position on the law, but I'm only in a consultant role. No one has to follow my position. Under my position, the capturing takes place in Bad Eiblingen, which is in Bavaria and therefore under the German law. But the leadership does not see it that way. So where is the legal disagreement? The question is, is the capturing at Bad Eiblingen under the scope of the BND law? And what is the leading opinion at the BND? The leading opinion is that the capturing takes place abroad. I was overruled there. So there is a legal foundation at Basin Law. Why does the other side just keep so stubborn? You'll have to ask the BND president about this. Well, this is not about upper, beats lower. You are the data protection commissioner, so if a legal position does not convince you, why does the president stick to that position? That is a fundamental decision. Otherwise, there would be strict rules. Ask Mr. Schindler, the president. Mr. BND president Schindler, you, of course, are a defendant of the space theory, according to which satellite capturing in Bad Eiblingen is outside the scope of German privacy law. So a legal free, space free of legal rules. So there have been doubts raised by several places, but the BND stuck to that theory. Do you still keep sticking to that theory? Well, actually, I would not need to ask myself that question. It was explained to me thus when I entered into service, so someone surely checked this. I, this position in the law, which was being lived in practice, was what I found, and we do not call this the space theory. Mr. President Schindler, well, we do like this term. It's kind of illustrative in paragraph one, section one of the BND Act, it says, now if in the scope of this law information, including personal data is being registered or captured, then the capturing, processing and use is under the paragraphs two and six and eight and 11 of the BND Act. Now, I think that the capturing does not take place in the scope of the law. I'm not alone in this position. There are good reasons to see it this way. Well, it seems to me like paragraph one, section two of the BND Act, surely has to be used for anything at all. But this is not an omnipotent position or rule in law. It's just, when this was made, there wasn't a Google, Twitter and social networks. Can this still be the position today with all the criticism that's been raised? Well, the practice that I found was in 2012. That was when the world was digital. The massive doubts within my house. I kind of liked, so I asked Mrs. F to, I promoted her to the position of data protection commissioner. I was very grateful to her for having this opinion of her own, but still I decided differently. Mr. Schindler, there is the theory of the virtual foreign country of virtual abroad, which says that capturing traffic from abroad to abroad at the Frankfurt node is actually traffic abroad. And there are lots of efforts being taken to say that telephone numbers are not personal data, so that the privacy legislation does not apply. There's a lot of creativity in legal interpretation to hugely expand the permissions of the BND. I'm not saying that all of this is against the law, but shouldn't you move away from this and find a clear legal basis if data protection law was applied to metadata? Would that be such a hindrance to the BND? The capturing in Frankfurt is legally different to that of satellites in Bad Eibling. Now, reasonably, you should be clear of this. Within, in the interior, domestically, there are different rules than abroad. And there should be better rules for this. G10 applications for route and traffic should be better regulated. And I do share your opinion on metadata. We are in a gray area legally and in the interest of legal clarity, a new regulation, a new legal foundation would be better. But I do not share your position on satellite capturing in Bad Eibling. And this takes place abroad. Mr. Buerbaum, previously, G10 legal expert of the BND, G10 the law that restricts telecommission secrecy, you tried to filter out G10 traffic and declare everything else as routine traffic and hand it on. Is that a trick? No, it's not a trick. This is the use of legal permissions to desire side effects. Mr. Adder, you are leading the legal branch of the BND. Are you saying that the space theory would be a model of the lived legal practice? Well, shouldn't it be adapted? Well, there's a difference whether I make the law or apply the law. So was there a particular practice in Bad Eibling for which a theory had to be constructed? Well, not in a scientific sense. This is a normal legal subsumption process. It's very special. The legal branch had to check whether this was according to the law. Mr. Adder, first there was the practice, then the space theory? No, first there was the law. And then the practice, then the space theory? Well, I did say that the theory modeled what was happening. The legal evaluation has to reflect the actual facts. Well, how then do you get to this evaluation? Surely the eavesdropping devices capture signals. The installation as such is in Bad Eibling, but that then makes it clear that the data is captured in Bad Eibling or is Bad Eibling now in space? Well, the devices have to be configured technically in a way that enables to capture what happens in the satellites. This is very elaborate technology. And it follows what's happening at the source of the signal. From there, the path towards the Earth's surface has to be made, has to be travelled. That's in the nature of things. Mr. Adder, I still quite understand why the capturing takes place at the satellite. If you control the antenna, that has nothing to do with the satellite. I don't think this is absurd at all. We follow what happens in space. But Mr. Adder, where now do I get my sunburn? At the sun or on my skin? You know, now the focus in Bad Eibling is to correct what... during the transition from the satellite is being distorted. Yes, but in Bad Eibling, I still can't see the difference. So we'll just register that we disagree. But the signal comes from Earth and always has a terrestrial relationship and focus and the capturing is in Germany. Well, I don't share that. Everything comes from Earth, apart from signals from aliens. Surely that can't make a legal difference. Well, I don't want to dispute all this. The space theory has no majority... is not a majority position. Mr. Heiss, Secret Service Coordinator in the Chancellor's Office. Now, the space theory goes to the limits of our legal system, and maybe goes beyond them. The data is registered and processed in Bad Eibling without the scope... outside the scope of the BND law. This also applies to the processing in Bad Eibling. But this has consequences that reach furthest. This data gets to the BND, which is under German law. Outside Germany, the BND law does not apply. You can dispute the interpretations, but there is no system here. With a different interpretation, the one that leads to larger security for all... for our soldiers is the one that is closer to us. Mr. Schindler surely would like this interpretation. Mr. Buerbaum, you, as a previous G10 lawyer of the BND, I would like to ask you, do people that are not Germans have fundamental rights if they happen to be abroad there? Of course, you think that is some of these people. The BND is a German authority and is under German law. The secrecy of telecommunications doesn't always apply. So the secrecy of telecommunications does not apply to foreign people. Do they not enjoy any protection by fundamental rights? I don't know. Are you under Article 10? That should be verified. I don't see a hindrance there. So a French person is making a phone call to Belgium. Is the BND allowed to surveil that without restrictions? Yes. Mr. Fritsche, the BND's interpretation of the following law is known to us. The space theory first, which means that capturing, but everything happens in space, not in Germany, then virtual abroad. The data capturing Frankfurt is virtually abroad, and then metadata are not personal data. So that way, the BND simply excludes itself from German law. Is that a state of things that can be tolerated, Mr. Fritsche? This is why the German government wants to find a legal clarification. Ah, you think a simple clarification will be enough? Yes. Basic rights don't apply in space. That, ladies and gentlemen, concludes the public part of today's session. In 20 minutes, we will have the closed session in the well-known room. Thank you very much to the general public. I conclude with have a nice evening and get home well. Hold on, here's a document that says, highly classified, that the witness must have left this. Basic rights do not apply in space. Well, we hope that we were able to bring you some of what happened, some of the humor, some of the actual interesting arguments. So, as always, we'd love to hear from you whether you were able to enjoy this as much as we did, or at least partly. Our hashtag on Twitter, C3T, our Twitter account, C3lingo, please let us know what you think. We want more feedback. Have fun at the last day of the Congress, or if you've switched to Hack a Jeopardy, we'll try to give you that in English. There's also a Swiss-German interpretation of that. But that's only inside the Congress. Okay, the encore will be next year. I would like to use this opportunity to thank Anna for the work that she did. Thank you very much.