OPC: Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz).

There is a Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Cologne, plus each German state has its own office. Example: the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bayerisches Landesamt fuer Verfassunggschutz), or the one of Berlin, Hessia, Saxonia etc. This is the German intelligence service responsible to protect the constitution against political groups who intend to overthrow the democratic state in Germany. This is its official and valid purpose. The OPC also has been misused by politicians in the German States to forward their own agenda or get rid of their opponents or groups they didn’t like. These included individuals and groups who never intended to destroy democracy in Germany. [Quite often the contrary.] The OPC for example was collecting data on the Unions, the Green party and even the second biggest party in Germany, the SPD.