{"id":186327,"date":"2021-06-07T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=186327"},"modified":"2021-06-03T04:15:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T03:15:34","slug":"danish-public-broadcaster-reveals-ongoing-nsa-spying-on-top-eu-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/06\/danish-public-broadcaster-reveals-ongoing-nsa-spying-on-top-eu-officials\/","title":{"rendered":"Danish Public Broadcaster Reveals Ongoing NSA Spying on Top EU Officials"},"content":{"rendered":"

2 Jun 2021 – <\/em>On Monday [31 May] evening, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron protested official revelations of electronic spying by the US National Security Agency (NSA), aided by Danish intelligence, targeting top German, French, Norwegian and Swedish officials. The targets included Merkel, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and former social-democratic chancellor candidate Peer Steinbr\u00fcck.<\/p>\n

Eight years ago, in 2013, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed mass NSA electronic spying and data collection targeting the entire world. Since then, revelations of mass spying by NATO intelligence agencies have gone hand in hand with stepped-up monitoring and censorship of the Internet and social media. The fact that top European officials were targeted for years after Snowden\u2019s revelations, amid US assurances that they would not be spied upon, underscores that no one is protected from the massive, ongoing electronic dragnet.<\/p>\n

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French President Emanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. (AP Photo\/Francois Mori)<\/p><\/div>\n

Snowden, now exiled in Russia, wrote on Twitter, \u201cThere should be an explicit requirement for full public disclosure not only from Denmark, but their senior partner as well.\u201d Referring to Biden\u2019s upcoming trip to Europe on June 11-13, Snowden pointed to Biden\u2019s record as vice president under Obama\u2019s NSA spying operations: \u201cBiden is well-prepared to answer for this when he soon visits Europe since, of course, he was deeply involved in this scandal the first time around.\u201d<\/p>\n

NSA use of Danish assets to spy on European politicians was revealed on Sunday evening by an extensive report by Danish public television (DR), citing anonymous Danish official sources. This report, the product of high-level collaboration between leading European media, was shared with the S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung<\/em> and NDR and WDR television in Germany, Le Monde<\/em> in France, Swedish public broadcaster SVT and Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.<\/p>\n

The operation, code-named \u201cOperation Dunhammer,\u201d involved a collaboration between the NSA and Danish Military Intelligence ( Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste<\/em>, FE), which handed over Internet data traffic passing through Denmark to be searched by the NSA. The FE launched its own internal investigation of the program in 2015, however. The DR writes, \u201cThe investigation was carried out by four hackers and intelligence analysts who studied US-Danish collaboration using great secrecy, so the NSA would not become aware of the FE investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

They found that the NSA was searching through this data using phone numbers and other personal data of many top European officials. One Danish source told DR that the NSA \u201cgot everything they used their phones for. It is impossible to deny that this was a targeted spying operation.\u201d Another said, \u201cThis is an affair that is emerging as the greatest intelligence scandal in Danish history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Due to its strategic location between Britain, continental Europe, Scandinavia and Russia, Denmark is critical for spying on EU-Russia communications. Collaboration on this, another Danish official told DR, \u201chas strategic significance for US-Danish relations.\u201d As a result, even after \u201cOperation Dunhammer\u201d was formally ended in 2015, FE officials have kept collaborating with NSA spying.<\/p>\n