Coordinating and Cooperating Intelligence Services

On August 21, 2014, the AGI Foreign & Domestic Policy Program hosted Dr. Günter Krings, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of the Interior, for a roundtable discussion. Moderated by Dr. Jackson Janes, President of AGI, the discussion focused on the clashes between Berlin and Washington over surveillance issues. The line of privacy is different on either side of the Atlantic and it became clear during the roundtable that there was no clear solution to where it should be drawn. More focus should be made on creating a political cost-benefit analysis for cyber security in Germany and the U.S. What is the necessity for the action? What are possible political repercussions? But despite setbacks, it was brought up that the surveillance crisis and other crises that the U.S. and Germany are facing such as in Ukraine make it clear that there is a need for stronger cooperation between allies.

Dr. Günter Krings was appointed Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of the Interior in December 2013. Since 2002 he has been a Member of the German Bundestag for the CDU and he was legal officer and deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group, among other assignments. Dr. Krings is Chairman of the Federal Association of Christian-Democratic Lawyers, Deputy Chairman of the German-American Parliamentary Friendship Group, and a Member of the Board of the German-American Lawyers Association. He was a Fulbright scholar in Philadelphia and earned his PhD in 2002 at the University of Cologne.

Relevant articles:
“Rebuilding the Relationship: The Undeniable Ties Between the United States and Germany” by Jackson Janes and Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg
“Of Omnipotence and Mistrust” by Cornelius Adebahr
“German-American Relations in Trouble? A Conversation with MdB Niels Annen” an At Issue Interview

Please contact Ms. Kimberly Frank with any questions at kfrank@aicgs.org.