ing that purpose. According to the legislative intent, strategic surveillance is meant
to yield intelligence on foreign matters that are significant to the foreign and security
policy of the Federal Republic of Germany. It thus serves to contribute to the early
detection of dangers, to safeguarding the Federal Republic of Germany’s capacity
to act and to providing information to the Federal Government on matters of foreign
and security policy. This constitutes a legitimate aim. Strategic telecommunications
surveillance is a suitable means for achieving that aim, because it makes it possible to obtain such information. Even though large volumes of data are initially intercepted that have no relevant informative value, this does not alter the fact that the
comprehensive interception and analysis of data can ultimately yield significant intelligence. Strategic surveillance also satisfies the requirements for necessity. Without
broad interception and analysis of data that is not based on specific grounds, such
intelligence could not be obtained. No less intrusive means that would yield generally
comparable intelligence are available.
b) Authorising the Federal Intelligence Service to carry out strategic surveillance of
foreign telecommunications can, in principle, also be justified in light of Art. 10(1) GG
with regard to proportionality in its strict sense.
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aa) However, strategic telecommunications surveillance results in interferences of
particularly great weight.
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(1) The interferences are of such great weight because this instrument is used to
covertly intrude into personal communications, which are often private and in some
cases even highly confidential. Such covert surveillance of telecommunications generally amounts to a serious interference (cf. BVerfGE 141, 220 <264 and 265 para.
92>), regardless of whether surveillance is conducted from within Germany or from
abroad and whether it targets persons within Germany and German citizens or foreign citizens abroad.
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(2) Yet compared to targeted surveillance of individual telecommunications, strategic surveillance gives rise to interferences of less weight given that it relates to data
whose informative value cannot be foreseen in detail. To the extent that strategic surveillance targets individuals by means of formal search terms, it is typically less precise and not as comprehensive, given that the networks and transmission routes (socalled routing) used for a specific communication link are largely determined
spontaneously depending on availability and given that only a fraction of the networks
existing in Germany and internationally are covered by bulk interception warrants. At
least in principle, the weight of interference resulting from strategic surveillance must
be distinguished from the weight of interference resulting from restrictions in specific
cases, as provided for by § 3 of the Article 10 Act.
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(3) Moreover, its weight of interference vis-à-vis persons abroad is lower because
this form of surveillance is not aimed at immediate operational consequences in the
same manner as surveillance measures targeting Germans or persons within Germany. Foreign surveillance concerns acts in other countries, where the German state
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