Since a 19-year-old suspected supporter of the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS) from Ternitz carried out an attack on one of the Taylor Swift-Concerts in Vienna in August (which ultimately led to the cancellation of the shows), the topic of security and terror defense is once again omnipresent.
This was Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, Head of the Directorate of State Security and Intelligence (DSN), answers questions on ZIB2 on Tuesday evening.
DSN boss for messenger monitoring
With the cancelled Swift concerts and the question of Monitoring of messenger serviceswhich is currently being debated again, moderator Armin Wolf also joined in the conversation: “The authorities and you did not know that the 19-year-old from Ternitz was dangerous until a tip-off from American intelligence services – how would more surveillance methods have helped?”
Haijawi-Pirchner, who had previously repeatedly spoken out in favour of such surveillance in Austria, then clarified: “Islamists and extremists now communicate on the Internet. Violent acts are sometimes communicated on the free Internet – but concrete plans for attacks are Chats, which are encrypted and where you can’t get in. In such cases, messenger monitoring is necessary. The case in Ternitz shows exactly that.”
Wolf then pressed on: “The moment we knew that this man was a sympathizer with IS, we could have already confiscated his cell phone and read everything from it.” Haijawi-Pirchner sees such a point in time as “too late” – and emphasizes the “fine line” between threat prevention and threat intelligence: “We must Proofs in order to be able to proceed with house searches, arrests and other measures.” Once again, the DSN boss brings up the topic of messenger surveillance: “From the day we knew that this person posed a threat, we could have collected a lot of evidence that would have been useful for this.”
DSN boss: “We have many dangerous people in Austria”
Presenter Wolf next wants to know from his studio guest, which specific crimes in Austria in recent years could have been prevented with the help of messenger surveillance. “Many things,” says Haijawi-Pirchner. And admits: “We know that we have many Islamist threats in Austria. Terrorist attacks cannot be prevented 100 percent with any surveillance option in the world.”
The threat landscape has changed today, so new methods are necessary. “We in Austria are the only country in Europe that does not currently have this option.”
Wolf then responds to the critical voices: “It is not the lack of information that is the problem, but rather that you evaluate the information inadequately, say critics.” The ZIB 2 presenter gives another example: “The 19-year-old from Ternitz has his Pledge of allegiance to IS in a video on Instagram uploaded. That should have been monitored – but it wasn’t seen.”
The DSN boss does not leave it at that: “Even if we had received this information earlier, we would have had to continue collecting evidence. In our work, we cannot take immediate, final measures after receiving initial information.” The State Protection and Intelligence Directorate is of course allowed to search the Internet, but: “You are talking here Mass surveillance Searching the public internet for keywords or images using algorithms would be exactly what we are often criticized for. We don’t want to do that and we can’t do that.”
“We know which Swift concert it would have been”
The current draft law for possible surveillance methods is also very different from the one on the federal Trojan from 2019 – this referred to to the content of a mobile phone. “But today we want to Messenger communication monitor those who pose an acute threat. We are currently only able to carry out our work in this area to a very limited extent.”
“How often would you use such surveillance software per year in Austria?” asks Wolf. Although this is difficult to answer, Haijawi-Pirchner estimates: “If I think about the last few months, I would estimate that this measure useful for ten to 20 cases per year were.”
The conversation returns to the 19-year-old Ternitzer. Here, it was “clearly possible” to prevent an attack: “The results of the investigation so far clearly show that a lot of preparation was carried out here. And that many lives were probably saved.”
Finally, the DSN boss mentions another detail from the case: “We have now also found a Entry for the Taylor Swift concert found. We know which concert it would have been.”
(kurier.at, beg)
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27.08.2024, 23:34
