[VladTheImplier]

In the wakes of Edward Snowden's revelations (where Merkel's phone was tapped, they lied to the public that it was not and the next day it was confirmed that it was indeed being tapped) it was shown, that the BKA and other parts of German government gladly sent over all the data they have collected to our "friends" over the pond. Whilst I and many truly appreciate the data protection, there are other laws, that force you to save data over a certain period of time, see the "Voratsdatenspeicherung" debate. There are so many beyond retarded laws, that make an internet based startup in Germany a very bad gamble. One of those retarded laws was "Störerhaft", which up until the end of 2017 made offering free WiFi basically illegal. Now you are required to identify and collect every real name within a Network. Now offering WiFi isn't straight up a guarantee for trouble, but you are forced to use a login page, which saves the name of the user.

[majewsky]

> Störerhaft

It's "Störerhaftung". I tend not to be picky about these words, but "Haft" (imprisonment) and "Haftung" (liability) is a huge difference.

[thunfischbrot]

Was it really the BKA? I was under the impression that it had been the BND, which should be scrapped as far as I'm concerned.

[pluma]

Yes, I'm fairly certain that the BKA being involved would have been a far greater scandal. The BND is well known to act above the law because of a total lack of accountability. The BKA is just the federal police.

To put it in terms foreigners might be able to relate to:

BND = CIA

BKA = FBI

BfV (Verfassungsschutz) = NSA

The BND is the German intelligence service and primarily tracks threats outside Germany. The BKA mostly just coordinates investigations at the national level (it's a lot more hands-off than the FBI). The Verfassungsschutz monitors domestic threats.

The Verfassungsschutz also infamously completely missed the existence of the far-right NSU terrorists who happily comitted a number of attacks and bombings which went unnoticed because of victim-blaming ("A Turkish fast food joint was bombed? Must have gotten involved with the Turkish mafia."). The Verfassungsschutz also later interfered in an investigation against itself by accidentally destroying evidence.

So if you still have difficulties telling them apart:

BND = unaccountable spies

BKA = federal police that doesn't really do much policing

Verfassungsschutz = really bad at hunting nazis