services and the Federal Government remain democratically accountable. As is the
case for other organs of the executive branch, intelligence services too are subject
to parliamentary oversight. A specific need for oversight arises in light of the trend
that intelligence activities rely more and more on cooperation and are becoming increasingly international in nature […]. The proliferation of international cooperation
between intelligence services partially decouples the gathering of intelligence and democratic responsibility, given that the basis of decision-making is partially determined
outside the sphere of influence of the receiving state’s democratic organs – in this
case the Federal Republic of Germany’s democratic organs […].
Therefore, the Bundestag has the right and the duty to exercise it oversight functions vis-à-vis the Federal Government in the field of intelligence by making use of all
available oversight mechanisms, ranging from the right of individual Members of the
Bundestag to submit questions to the right to establish committees of inquiry. The
various oversight mechanisms are neither mutually exclusive nor is any such mechanism more specific than the other (cf. § 1(2) of the Act on the Parliamentary Oversight
of Federal Intelligence Activities, Gesetz über die parlamentarische Kontrolle
nachrichtendienstlicher Tätigkeit des Bundes – PKGrG; BTDrucks 8/1599 p. 6).
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The United States (US) intelligence services are similarly subjected to parliamentary
oversight. In both Houses, Congress has permanent special committees: the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. These two parliamentary oversight bodies are accorded far-reaching oversight powers regarding, inter alia, budget appropriation and budget implementation,
tactical intelligence information as well as sources and methods of intelligence activity
[…]. Similar to the situation in Germany, the United States of America allow for the establishment of committees of inquiry or special committees, such as the Review
Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies aimed at reforming the
NSA surveillance practices.
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b) Considering the nature and the scope of the means of intelligence made available
to the intelligence services, and due to the resulting intensity of interferences with fundamental rights as well as the covert nature of intelligence activity, and the lack of
transparency in the subsequent processing of data from the perspective of affected
individuals (cf. BVerfGE 100, 313 <361>), it follows that parliamentary oversight of
the intelligence services serves a particular investigative purpose.
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According to the investigation mandate as defined in the motion for its establishment
(cf. BTDrucks 18/843), the Committee of Inquiry is tasked with investigating, inter
alia, whether foreign agencies – with the support of German agencies – have gathered intelligence on communication processes involving German holders of fundamental rights, on the contents of such processes as well as on other forms of data
processing; and whether the data gathered was made subject to data retention, data
monitoring or data analysis.
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According to the Federal Constitutional Court’s case-law, collecting personal infor-
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