Germany's top security officials said Friday they consider the goals of the U.S.-based Church of Scientology to be in conflict with the principles of the nation's constitution and will seek to ban the group.The interior ministers of the nation's 16 states as well as federal Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble "consider Scientology to be an organization that is not compatible with the constitution," Berlin Interior Minister Erhart Koerting, who presided over the officials' two-day conference, told reporters. The German government considers Scientology a commercial enterprise that takes advantage of vulnerable people. During the summer, it initially refused to allow the producers of a movie starring Scientology member Tom Cruise as Germany's most famous anti-Hitler plotter to film at the site where the hero was executed, although it did not expressly state Scientology as its reason.

The ministers plan to task the nation's domestic intelligence agency to begin preparing the necessary information to ban Scientology in Germany. The agency has had Scientology under observation for a decade on allegations that it "threatens the peaceful democratic order" of the country.

Scientologists have long battled to end the surveillance, saying it is an abuse of their right to freedom of religion. The State Department regularly criticizes Germany in its annual Human Rights Report for the monitoring practice.