NSA monitored European politicians through a telecommunications center in Denmark

Daniel ZimmermannJune 2, 2021

0 55 2 minutes read

Several news agencies recently reported that the US NSA monitored European politicians after the Danish special services provided the NSA with access to the country’s telecommunications centre.

This secret espionage operation, for which the secret services of the two countries made an agreement, was called Operation Dunhammer and was carried out between 2012 and 2014. An agreement signed by the NSA and the Danish military intelligence service (Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste) allowed the American side to deploy a data interception system called XKeyscore from a base near Copenhagen.

It is reported that the NSA allegedly used XKeyscore to massively eavesdrop on mobile and Internet traffic, as well as to intercept messages, including emails, phone calls, SMS and chat messages sent to phone numbers and email addresses of European politicians.

The operation ended in 2014 after the Danish government learned about cooperation with the NSA (after the leaks of Edward Snowden).

Officials terminated Operation Dunhammer when they learned that the NSA was also monitoring members of the Danish government.according to the media.

It is also reported that several high-ranking members of the Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste were suspended from work last year, as Danish law prohibits foreign intelligence services from using the country’s resources for domestic espionage.

The first to report about Operation Dunhammer were the journalists of the Danish TV company DR, which got a document called Dunhammer Report. The document contains the results of an investigation that the country’s authorities conducted after learning about the cooperation of the NSA and the Danish military intelligence.

Now the German broadcasters NDR and WDR, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the French newspaper Le Monde, the Swedish TV company SVT and the Norwegian TV company NRK talk about the surveillance of politicians. According to them, the operation affected many high-ranking government officials from Central and Northern Europe, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

NSA and Danish intelligence officials declined to comment on news agencies.

In turn, Edward Snowden has already stated that an agreement between the NSA and the Danish military intelligence service has taken place.

Biden 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. There should be an explicit requirement for full public disclosure not only from Denmark, but their senior partner as well.Snowden wrote on his Twitter.

Also in his Twitter Edward Snowden shared an old Danish news article, in which he accused Denmark of having welcomed an NSA plane to its territory back in 2013, was ready to extradite him and deliver Snowden to the United States at any time, although at that time he was already on the run and applied for asylum.

Let me remind you that we also reported that Chinese hackers used NSA exploit years before The Shadow Brokers leak.

Sending