Danish Defence Intelligence Service
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Headquarters | Copenhagen |
Leader | Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste/Director |
Interest of | Herbert Pundik |
Subpage | •Danish Defence Intelligence Service/Chief |
Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE) (English:Danish Defence Intelligence Service) is a military intelligence agency in Denmark.
Whistleblower
Frank Grevil was an employee who blew the whistle on Anders Fogh Rasmussen's lies.
Illegal surveillance and Lying
In August 2020 it was exposed that since 1998, consecutive Danish governments have had an written agreement with the American intelligence service NSA on tapping information from Danish fiber optic cables. This includes telecommunications traffic from Danish citizens, which is illegal without a warrant in Denmark. This is not just a US initiative, or illegalities in the FE, but a standard policy that all defense ministers have been aware of since the then Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen signed the agreement in 1998. The agreement was only made public thanks to an anonymous whistleblower.
The surveillance was also done during the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit.
In 2020, the Danish Tilsynet med Efterretningstjenesterne (English: Supervision of the Intelligence Services”) commission went public with a comprehensive indictment against the Defense Intelligence Service, i.e for having cooperated with the American NSA in violation of Danish law to obtain information about Danish citizens; for having kept this practice secret from their supervision; and for having spied on Supervision Commission members[1]
Four FE-employees, including boss Lars Findsen and his predecessor Thomas Ahrenkiel, were suspended (with pay) after having kept quiet or lied about these practices to the supervision commission.
When Danish Defence Minister Trine Bramsen put the four FE-employees on paid leave while this was being 'investigated', ex-Defense Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen raged in an interview that Bramsen had to go, for not keeping this case as strictly an internal matter and not lying to the public about it. (Incidentally the interview confirmed what until then had been only an accusation from anonymous sources.
An internal investigation of the surveillance practice is expected; but it will be done in secret, and the result will be classified. FM Trine Bramsen assured that "It is important for me to emphasise that the fight against the threats against Denmark must not stop while the investigation is carried out".[2]
Employee on Wikispooks
Employee | Job | Appointed | End |
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Thomas Lund-Sørensen | Head of the Center for Cyber Security | May 2012 | November 2021 |