Denmark’s intelligence agency helped the United States spy on European officials, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, from 2012 to 2014, according to Danish media reports.
Denmark’s intelligence agency, known as FE in English, cooperated with the US National Intelligence Service (NSA) in collecting information, according to a report by Danish media outlet Danmarks Radio.
The intelligence was collected from the authorities of Germany, France, Sweden (Suède) and Norway (Norvège), according to the report.
Similar allegations were made in 2013.
At that time, Edward Snowden, a former US intelligence official, accused the NSA of listening to German Chancellor Merkel’s phone calls.
When the allegations were made public, the US president’s White House office did not deny them, but said that Mrs. Merkel’s phone calls were not being listened to at the time and would not be listened to in the future.
Germany is a great ally of the United States.
In a new report shared with several European intelligence agencies, the NSA is said to have accessed the phone messages and conversations of some high profile people via Danish internet lines in cooperation with the Danish National Intelligence Service. , FE.
The report claims that the spying operation – reportedly dubbed “Operation Dunhammer” – allowed the NSA to access information using the phone numbers of some officials in its search, according to media outlet Danmarks Radio.
The report follows a media investigation into nine people, all of whom are said to have had access to classified information held by Denmark’s FE intelligence agency.
Along with Mrs Merkel, former German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and former opposition leader Peer Steinbruck are also said to have been dismissed.
Neither the Danish Ministry of Defense nor FE representatives would comment on the news.
After the leaks were released on Sunday, Mr. Snowden accused US President Joe Biden of “participating in this atrocity in the first place”. Mr. Biden was the Vice President of the United States when the alleged fraud was committed.
“There should be an open demand for public disclosure not only by Denmark, but [by] key partners,” Mr Snowden wrote on Twitter.
In 2013, Mr. Snowden – a former CIA agent – leaked information to the media about the US spying on the Internet and telephone calls.
At the time, the United States accused him of theft of government property, unauthorized disclosure of national security information and disclosure of intelligence secrets for malicious purposes.
Mr. Snowden later sought asylum in Russia.
Prior to the release of the evidence, US intelligence officials had publicly insisted that the NSA had never knowingly collected private phone data.
