Abstract
This chapter explores how German police and intelligence agencies trace, collect, analyse, and disseminate processed information on extending territories and moving populations, and how various ‘intelligence platforms’ are designed and deployed by local, regional, and federal police agencies. Does the whole process improve intelligence sharing among police forces or does it allow increased autonomy? What level of access, legal or unsaid, do intelligence services have to police intelligence? How do the different intelligence platforms, acting as a comprehensive networking structure, interlink the European information systems? This chapter investigates how intrusive surveillance through computerised devices has not only transformed the way intelligence is operating but also changed the traditional rules of cooperation within police agencies and between the police and intelligence services. The chapter aims to provide a better understanding of the ‘manufacture of intelligence’ by examining in detail the tools, habits, and practices of police forces and intelligence services in Germany. From this empirical study, one idea emerges that, far from strengthening cooperation, the intelligence process is rather conducive to increased autonomy which in turn provides bargaining leeway when it comes to cooperate with other forces, administrations, or the government.
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