Bärbel Bas took presidency of the German Parliament in 2021. Her career went steady and only upwards: she joined the SPD-party in 2008, entered the Bundestag as member one year later, advanced to prominent roles including Deputy Chairwoman of her party. In October 2021, Bas became the President of the Bundestag, emphasizing increased gender representation.
Talk w/ President of German Parliament on possible Cyberwar from Russia
Berlin, September 2023
The discussion spanned multiple subtopics. Some notable examples:
1. Cybersecurity threats at this present moment
Assessing the importance. Attacks from (presumably) Russia are not just theory, but everyday life in Europe: The Bundestag hack in 2015, German Interior Ministry Breach in 2018, attacks on Think Tanks in 2019, DoppelPaymer Ransomware attack in 2020 etc. (you get the point!).
2. Germany’s Preparedness and role of the German Parliament
In-detail discussion on influence of legislative framework on cybersecurity practices and the ‘golden middle’ for weighting freedom and security. While the parliament has already enacted a high quantitiy of measures, the issue has not minimized ever since.
I assue an urgence for higher funding of European Cyberdefence – creating new jobs, less regulatory framework and collaboration with private tech and governments.
3. Impact on democracy
The recent development makes me predict a drastic increase of disturbance of our order and asked Bas about the actions in scenarios of need for extreme measures – such as the entire erasure of electroral results. She explained a very limited and so far never used set of legislature tools to deal with such situations.
I am confident in her determination in strengthening Germany’s digital resilience and reminded myself about the vital importance of young computer scientists, such as me, for our shared future. This world should, in fact, not be a playground, but stay breeding ground for life and love.