Listening to friends: According to media reports, the Danish secret service helped the US secret service NSA to eavesdrop on Chancellor Angela Merkel (66, CDU) and other top European politicians. The Danish foreign and military intelligence service Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE) enabled the NSA to use the secret listening station Sandagergardan near Copenhagen, reported the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) and other European media, including NDR, WDR and the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” ” On Sunday.
According to joint research by the broadcasters and newspapers, the US secret service was able to tap into an important Internet hub for various submarine cables there between 2012 and 2014. The wiretapping was directed against leading politicians from Germany, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and France. In this country, in addition to Merkel and the current Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (65), the then SPD chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrück (74) was affected.
Danes are also snubbed
According to the research, the cooperation between the NSA and the Danish secret service in monitoring neighboring European countries was documented in an internal FE report in 2015. The Danish Defense Minister Trine Bramsen (40), who has been in office since June 2019, was informed of this in August 2020, according to the DR. She told the broadcaster that “systematic wiretapping of close allies” was unacceptable.
What did Obama know?
Steinbrück told the research network of NDR, WDR and “SZ” that he only found out about the wiretapping against him through the reports. “Politically, I think that’s a scandal.” He does believe that western states also need functional and efficient intelligence services. But this type of wiretapping between partners shows “that they lead quite a life of their own”.
Steinbrück remembers, according to the “Süddeutsche”, that he had addressed the then US President Barack Obama (59) at a meeting in June 2013 about the NSA affair. But Obama had evaded the topic as if: “The President did not want to talk about it,” said Steinbrück. Obama said a few short sentences about his duty to protect the American people and the meticulous control of the secret services.
Edward Snowden rolled up the NSA affair
The federal government also had no idea of the spying on leading government members from Denmark. “The subject of your research became known to the Chancellor through your inquiry,” said a government spokesman. Federal President Steinmeier also stated that he had not known anything about the wiretapping operations from Denmark so far.
Former US intelligence officer Edward Snowden (37) published thousands of top-secret documents in 2013 about the surveillance practices of the US intelligence services. The revelations sparked outrage around the world. Among other things, there was the allegation that the NSA had tapped Merkel’s cell phone. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office discontinued the investigation in 2015. (AFP / kes)