Danish intelligence chief held over suspected info leaks, local media report
A bit of background:<p>Since WW2 Denmark has aligned itself with the US. This has been the consensus since then across all the major parties (Conservatives, Liberals, Social-Liberals and Social-Democratic (with a noteworthy exception[1])).<p>The stance has during all those years from time to time been challenged by fringe parties like the Communist Party and the far-right Progress Party (who suggested that the Danish defence budget should be cut entirely and replaced with a answering machine saying &quot;we surrender&quot; in Russian).<p>The Danish populace has not always wanted this &quot;hard alignment&quot;. As an example, Denmark would not allow American bases in Denmark (contrary to UK, Germany, etc). But we allowed the Americans to build an Airforce Base at Thule on Greenland (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Thule_Air_Base" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Thule_Air_Base</a>).<p>The Social-Democratic prime ministers also communicated publicly, that Denmark would not allow nuclear weapons in peacetime. Yet, it was communicated to the American ambassador in 1960 that Denmark would ignore it, if US had nuclear weapons at Thule (as long as they didn&#x27;t tell anyone). All was well until 1968 when an American B-52 crashes near Thule with thermonuclear bombs on board. It is worth noting that English wikipedia does not have an account of the incident, but the Danish does: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;da.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Thule-sagen_(1968)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;da.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Thule-sagen_(1968)</a><p>Well, the cold war &quot;won&quot; and after 1990s aligned even more with the US. In the late 90s the previously state-owned TeleDanmark company (telephony monopoly) was privatized and sold to the American company Ameritech beginning in 1997.<p>Around the same time the Americans approached the Danish politicians again. And a deal similar to the nuclear weapons on Greenland was reached: &quot;You&#x27;re allowed to use our infrastructure to spy on people, but we&#x27;re not going to make it official&quot;. As the same time Denmark was in &quot;the coalition of the willing&quot; sending troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan.<p>Now, it is worth noting, that this is not a partisan issue within the Danish political elite. We&#x27;ve had Conservative, Liberal and Social-Democratic Ministers of Defence the last twenty years and they have all been briefed about this cooperation. The same goes for their permanent secretaries.<p>Snowden revealed a lot about this cooperation back in 2015. The &quot;nifty&quot; part from the American perspective is, that they can tell the Danish &quot;We won&#x27;t spy on Danish people, only foreigners&quot;. They then approach Britain and says: &quot;We won&#x27;t spy on British people, only foreigners&quot;. The do the same with Norway, The Netherlands etc. and... well, suddenly they&#x27;re able to spy on all Europeans. Denmark has a great position for spying because a lot of traffic from Eastern Europe travels through Denmark (and Sweden, but they are not part of NATO). Also, hearsay is that the spying on German Chancellor Merkel was done from Denmark.<p>Around 2014 the Danish politicians decided to establish &quot;Tilsynet med EfterretningsTjenesterne&quot; (TET) aka. &quot;Supervisory Authority on the Intelligence Agencies&quot; to keep an eye on the intelligence agencies replacing some toothless organisation that previously had the task.<p>In 2020 TET made a press release: &quot;We cannot get the information we require from the intelligence agencies&quot;. The Minister of Defence at this time is Trine Bramsen, who is most known for complaining about nerds being hard to approach and understand for her friends and it is impossible to understand why they all wear white tennis socks (I kid you not: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.version2.dk&#x2F;blog&#x2F;opraab-til-it-noerderne-smid-tennissokkerne-og-tal-saa-vi-kan-forstaa-det-254054" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.version2.dk&#x2F;blog&#x2F;opraab-til-it-noerderne-smid-te...</a> - use Google translate for a cringe experience).<p>She is totally clueless.<p>But that was great in this situation, because as any politician she wants to show how she can solve issues in a resolute manner. So she sends home a bunch of civil servants (including head of the Defence Intelligence Agency, a previous permanent secretary, etc. The top brass). Apparently she didn&#x27;t get (or understand) the verbal memo about: &quot;Don&#x27;t ask and don&#x27;t tell about our cooperation with the Americans&quot;.<p>Like an elephant in a porcelain store.<p>And retired Ministers of Defence were all gunning at her for &quot;ruining the cooperation with our greatest allies&quot; etc. They, of course, do not want it to be revealed, that they had this information.<p>Well. Time passes. And just before Christmas it was announced that the matter has been investigated. The public are not allowed to hear, what has been investigated. Or who. But the conclusion is that the intelligence agencies has done nothing wrong. Nothing to see here. Move along.<p>A couple of days later, the directors (not the editors!) at a couple of major newspapers are called to a meeting with the head of the Police Intelligence Agency and the Defence Military Agency (temp head) where they are politely told: &quot;We just want to let you know, that harming our cooperation with foreign powers carry a 12 year sentence&quot; (it&#x27;s a very long sentence in Danish terms).<p>The Police Intelligence Agency has been playing &quot;whack a mole&quot;, literally, for some time: Who leaked to TET? Who leaked to the press?<p>We are currently in a situation, where the state-sponsored national Danish broadcaster (DR) is reporting, that the Police Intelligence Agency (PET) has been surveilling, including wire-tapping, the head of the Defence Intelligence Agency: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dr.dk&#x2F;nyheder&#x2F;indland&#x2F;hemmelig-pet-taskforce-aflyttede-spionchef-lars-findsen-i-maanedsvis-afsloere-laek" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dr.dk&#x2F;nyheder&#x2F;indland&#x2F;hemmelig-pet-taskforce-afl...</a> (again, Google translate).<p>I hope this provides some context. There has since the 1960s been an understanding in the top of Danish society that &quot;The Americans are our friends, we cannot say &#x27;no&#x27;.&quot;. Even if the Danish population has been kept in the dark. A clueless Minister of Defence by accident kicks the hornet&#x27;s nest and now somebody must take the fall. But be aware that they&#x27;re all in on it. No minister (left or right) is innocent and the same goes for the civil servants at the very top.<p>But it is not all bad! Whereas Germany was earlier our primary trading partner, Denmark nowadays export more to the US than to our neighbouring country. A few dead soldiers and no privacy for your population was totally worth it.<p>[1] During the 1980s some parts of the Social-Democrats wanted Denmark to re-align. This caused the so-called &quot;footnote politic&quot;. Whenever NATO wanted to take some initiative, the Danish foreign minister had to negotiate footnotes saying &quot;Denmark is not part of this and that&quot;.