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Comment by jpelecanos | Hacker News Reader

Based on the article, it seems that the German government combined foreign and signals intelligence into one agency, the BND. In the US, however, Truman separated them into the CIA [0] and the NSA [1], respectively. Thus, is there a specific reason for BND's dual role?

[0] https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...

[1] https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/tru...

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The BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) is civilian federal foreign intelligence, the BfV (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) is civilian federal domestic intelligence. It was probably not a great idea for e.g. diplomacy if Germany had loads of foreign intelligence agencies after WW2.

In the US, you have way more agencies. The five most famous are Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) [0]. Germany does have other military intelligence agencies, such as Kommando Strategische Aufklärung or Militärischer Abschirmdienst (domestic military intelligence). They are subdivisions of the German military (Bundeswehr). Some of the US agencies are child agencies of the DoD. So arguably it's similar?

And because Europe is countries but the US is states, it isn't really comparable in size, so splitting these roles into different agencies makes less sense. There are benefits of having only one agency/organisation, e.g. re-assigning personnel and easier cooperation (inner-agency vs inter-agency).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com...

Are german federal states allowed to have their own intelligence agencies?

They each have their own Verfassungsschutz. Anything beyond that would require new laws. And even Bavaria doesn't quite dare to step into Stasi territory.

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