10 ms·

Danish intelligence chief held over suspected info leaks, local media report

217 points by pizza 5y ago

irthomasthomas 5y ago
- kzrdude 5y ago
  I don't see any connection at all
- mrweasel 5y ago
  It should be noted to our American friends that their reasoning isn’t some anti vaccine agenda, but the lack of critism of a government exibiting a more totalitarion retroric than Denmark is acustom to. There has been little critisim of the Covid handling until late last year, but a series of logical failures between the presented policies and actual implementation are now being reported on.
- neom 5y ago
  He allegedly leaked information to their domestic media about the NSA working with the Danish on spying missions.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mrweasel 5y ago
Two newspapers have also refused to let the police question their journalists, because it’s not specified why they want to interview them, and given that they won’t name sources, questioning becomes pointless.
- duxup 5y ago
  Do those requests usually go through a newspaper and not to the individual?
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    Maybe, but since it is work related, the individual journalist can still informs their newspaper and lawers who can take action.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mrweasel 5y ago
    No, they go to the individual, as explained in a debate on Danish TV yesterday. The journalists then bring the information to their employeers, which call their lawyers and handle the matter from there. The journalists aren’t legally required to allow themselfs to be questioned. That’s only if the case goes to court, but no one is refusing to testify in that case, because then the charges are public and a judge is present.
throwaway4good 5y ago
This is an absolutely bonkers story by Danish standard. The guy is amongst the highest ranking civil servants, holds the order of Dannebro. On top of this a number of Danish journalists have been "taken in for a chat" by the intelligence services. The charges are still secret, but appears to be related to this story: Danish secret service helped US spy on Germany's Angela Merkel: report https://www.dw.com/en/danish-secret-service-helped-us-spy-on-germanys-angela-merkel-report/a-57721901 https://www.dw.com/en/danish-secret-service-helped-us-spy-on...
- miohtama 5y ago
  Do fiber cables land in Denmark, or what special does Denmark have to make it a good partner for NSA?
  - hammock 5y ago
    They are Nine Eyes (coalition that excludes Germany), willingly cooperative and with different charter/regulations than NSA. Bit of a tautological answer and I hope another commenter has more insight.
  - 4gotunameagain 5y ago
    https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ Also Denmark has been a US protectorate for quite a while for reasons (e.g. Thule airforce base)
    - pc86 5y ago
      "Protectorate" has a very specific definition and Denmark is most certainly not one.
  - poizan42 5y ago
    Exactly, more specifically Blåbjerg is one of the landing points of TAT-14 as well as Havfrue/AEC-2.
- decebalus1 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lloydjones 5y ago
Borgen prophesised this!
csa 5y ago
My guess is that this guy said “no” to the wrong person, and this is payback. I will also guess that this chief is probably on the ethically correct side of the situation.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  Do you have more information, than what is written in that article? Because I see your conclusion only as a vague possible hypothesis among many other options. And intelligence services are by default usually into very grey, if not dark areas of ethics. So all this might just as well be an internal power struggle of which the public will only get to view a very distorted picture, of what was actually going on.
  - vintermann 5y ago
    Not really. He's charged with leaking to the media. There's only one story that's been recently leaked to the media: The one about helping NSA to spy on domestic and allied political leaders. Intelligence agencies can only wish they were able to distort the picture for the public reliably, and frequently mess things up. So the most likely explanation is the obvious, apparent one: He was shocked at the extent of the friendly spying, and leaked it to the media once it became clear it would be buried. The interesting thing is how Denmark will handle this.
    - goto11 5y ago
      > There's only one story that's been recently leaked to the media: The one about helping NSA to spy on domestic and allied political leaders. Actually several (apparently unrelated) stories have been leaked. One story about an intelligence operative who have been jailed for joining ISIS undercover, and one about a potential security threat from children of ISIS-supporters in camps in Syria. The one about NSA mad a bigger splash outside of Denmark, but the other cases where arguably more embarrassing for the Danish government.
  - csa 5y ago
    > Do you have more information, than what is written in that article? No specifics, and I doubt that there will ever be any more unclassified specifics. That said, this is SOP for some sectors of the world. > Because I see your conclusion only as a vague possible hypothesis among many other options. Sure. That is probably how it will remain. > And intelligence services are by default usually into very grey, if not dark areas of ethics. Yep. > So all this might just as well be an internal power struggle of which the public will only get to view a very distorted picture, of what was actually going on. Yep.
Mizza 5y ago
Secret charges and courts corrupt democratic society. Extrajudicial "intelligence" agencies must be dismantled.
- kzrdude 5y ago
  Maybe arresting the director is a good first step? (Alas, it is not, because the conflict seems to be mostly about leaking info about the security state operations to media, not doing any such operations that they shouldn't have.)
- tomjen3 5y ago
  We have lots of secret charges in Denmark. Usually it is because there are more than one person involved and we don't want to tip anybody of. Often the identity of the person involved is also secret, but that is to protected that person, in case he or she is innocent. Such orders are always removed when the person is found guilty (to my knowledge anyway). I think charges have to be revealed when the actual proceedings start, and of course the defendant and their lawyers know.
topper-123 5y ago
The timeline of this is very strange: - in august he had been put on administrative leave - he was imprisoned on the 9th of december - on the 13th of december an independant commission set up by parliament (consisting of three judges) exponerated everyone implicated in this case - on the 14th of december, the minister of defence welcomed him back to work - today, 10th of january the public learned for the first time that he was imprisoned and still is imprisoned. So even though he was exonerated by the independent commitee AND welcomed back by the minister, he is actually in prison. Very strange situation, makes we wonder if there are aspects of the case the public does not know about, or if someone has made an enormous error.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > experated I assume this is a typo for exonerated?
  - pfortuny 5y ago
    That means to irritate but guess he meant exonerated.
  - topper-123 5y ago
    Yes, corrected.
    - willhslade 5y ago
      Ah, yes, exponerated.
      - speed_spread 5y ago
        Innocence, squared.
- SiempreViernes 5y ago
  The charges are about leaking to the media, not for breaking the law when spying on Danes, the latter being what the commission was set up to investigate.
luser007 5y ago
A bit of background: Since WW2 Denmark has aligned itself with the US. This has been the consensus since then across all the major parties (Conservatives, Liberals, Social-Liberals and Social-Democratic (with a noteworthy exception[1])). The stance has during all those years from time to time been challenged by fringe parties like the Communist Party and the far-right Progress Party (who suggested that the Danish defence budget should be cut entirely and replaced with a answering machine saying "we surrender" in Russian). The Danish populace has not always wanted this "hard alignment". As an example, Denmark would not allow American bases in Denmark (contrary to UK, Germany, etc). But we allowed the Americans to build an Airforce Base at Thule on Greenland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Air_Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Air_Base). The Social-Democratic prime ministers also communicated publicly, that Denmark would not allow nuclear weapons in peacetime. Yet, it was communicated to the American ambassador in 1960 that Denmark would ignore it, if US had nuclear weapons at Thule (as long as they didn't tell anyone). All was well until 1968 when an American B-52 crashes near Thule with thermonuclear bombs on board. It is worth noting that English wikipedia does not have an account of the incident, but the Danish does: https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule-sagen_(1968) https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule-sagen_(1968) Well, the cold war "won" and after 1990s aligned even more with the US. In the late 90s the previously state-owned TeleDanmark company (telephony monopoly) was privatized and sold to the American company Ameritech beginning in 1997. Around the same time the Americans approached the Danish politicians again. And a deal similar to the nuclear weapons on Greenland was reached: "You're allowed to use our infrastructure to spy on people, but we're not going to make it official". As the same time Denmark was in "the coalition of the willing" sending troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, it is worth noting, that this is not a partisan issue within the Danish political elite. We've had Conservative, Liberal and Social-Democratic Ministers of Defence the last twenty years and they have all been briefed about this cooperation. The same goes for their permanent secretaries. Snowden revealed a lot about this cooperation back in 2015. The "nifty" part from the American perspective is, that they can tell the Danish "We won't spy on Danish people, only foreigners". They then approach Britain and says: "We won't spy on British people, only foreigners". The do the same with Norway, The Netherlands etc. and... well, suddenly they're able to spy on all Europeans. Denmark has a great position for spying because a lot of traffic from Eastern Europe travels through Denmark (and Sweden, but they are not part of NATO). Also, hearsay is that the spying on German Chancellor Merkel was done from Denmark. Around 2014 the Danish politicians decided to establish "Tilsynet med EfterretningsTjenesterne" (TET) aka. "Supervisory Authority on the Intelligence Agencies" to keep an eye on the intelligence agencies replacing some toothless organisation that previously had the task. In 2020 TET made a press release: "We cannot get the information we require from the intelligence agencies". The Minister of Defence at this time is Trine Bramsen, who is most known for complaining about nerds being hard to approach and understand for her friends and it is impossible to understand why they all wear white tennis socks (I kid you not: https://www.version2.dk/blog/opraab-til-it-noerderne-smid-tennissokkerne-og-tal-saa-vi-kan-forstaa-det-254054 https://www.version2.dk/blog/opraab-til-it-noerderne-smid-te... - use Google translate for a cringe experience). She is totally clueless. But that was great in this situation, because as any politician she wants to show how she can solve issues in a resolute manner. So she sends home a bunch of civil servants (including head of the Defence Intelligence Agency, a previous permanent secretary, etc. The top brass). Apparently she didn't get (or understand) the verbal memo about: "Don't ask and don't tell about our cooperation with the Americans". Like an elephant in a porcelain store. And retired Ministers of Defence were all gunning at her for "ruining the cooperation with our greatest allies" etc. They, of course, do not want it to be revealed, that they had this information. Well. Time passes. And just before Christmas it was announced that the matter has been investigated. The public are not allowed to hear, what has been investigated. Or who. But the conclusion is that the intelligence agencies has done nothing wrong. Nothing to see here. Move along. A couple of days later, the directors (not the editors!) at a couple of major newspapers are called to a meeting with the head of the Police Intelligence Agency and the Defence Military Agency (temp head) where they are politely told: "We just want to let you know, that harming our cooperation with foreign powers carry a 12 year sentence" (it's a very long sentence in Danish terms). The Police Intelligence Agency has been playing "whack a mole", literally, for some time: Who leaked to TET? Who leaked to the press? We are currently in a situation, where the state-sponsored national Danish broadcaster (DR) is reporting, that the Police Intelligence Agency (PET) has been surveilling, including wire-tapping, the head of the Defence Intelligence Agency: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/hemmelig-pet-taskforce-aflyttede-spionchef-lars-findsen-i-maanedsvis-afsloere-laek https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/hemmelig-pet-taskforce-afl... (again, Google translate). I hope this provides some context. There has since the 1960s been an understanding in the top of Danish society that "The Americans are our friends, we cannot say 'no'.". Even if the Danish population has been kept in the dark. A clueless Minister of Defence by accident kicks the hornet's nest and now somebody must take the fall. But be aware that they're all in on it. No minister (left or right) is innocent and the same goes for the civil servants at the very top. But it is not all bad! Whereas Germany was earlier our primary trading partner, Denmark nowadays export more to the US than to our neighbouring country. A few dead soldiers and no privacy for your population was totally worth it. [1] During the 1980s some parts of the Social-Democrats wanted Denmark to re-align. This caused the so-called "footnote politic". Whenever NATO wanted to take some initiative, the Danish foreign minister had to negotiate footnotes saying "Denmark is not part of this and that".
dirtyid 5y ago
Was matter of time before effected EU countries start tackling US infiltration. Surprised this is handled so publically.
danielovichdk 5y ago
"Microsofts datacenterregion vil sikre Forsvaret adgang til IT- og datakapacitet, som vi ikke kan udvikle selv. Mange af de løsninger, vi er afhængige af i fremtiden – inklusive løsninger, der bygger på kunstig intelligens – kræver computerkraft, der kun er mulig ved brug af cloud-løsninger. Jeg ser derfor frem til samarbejdet med Microsoft i forhold til de konkrete muligheder, som den nye datacenterregion åbner for Forsvaret,” siger Kristian Vengsgaard, Chief Information Officer i Forsvaret" Source: https://news.microsoft.com/da-dk/2020/12/07/microsoft-investerer-i-danmark/ https://news.microsoft.com/da-dk/2020/12/07/microsoft-invest...
- danielovichdk 5y ago
  Translated "Microsoft's data center region will ensure the Armed Forces access to IT and data capacity that we cannot develop ourselves. Many of the solutions we depend on in the future - including solutions based on artificial intelligence - require computing power that is only possible using cloud solutions. I therefore look forward to the collaboration with Microsoft in relation to the specific opportunities that the new data center region opens up for the Armed Forces, ”says Kristian Vengsgaard, Chief Information Officer in the Armed Forces"
- HumanReadable 5y ago
  I have a feeling the computing demand for every AI use case the Danish military could want to pursue, could be met by a few mainframes with fewer security risks. Given the work that goes into verifying the data center meets some assumably very high requirements, I imagine mainframes might even be the cheaper solution too. Seems to me like yet another example of companies successfully lobbying governments to buy unnecessary things.
olliej 5y ago
Seems like the type of group we could definitely trust to have access to “emergency use only” back doors in encryption algorithms.
type0 5y ago
Does Denmark have secret courts like US?
- nelgaard 5y ago
  Not officially and not like the US. However for about 10 years there have been issued warrants without the name of the court and judges on them in terror-related cases: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/danmark-har-hemmelige-dommere https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/danmark-har-hemmelige-domm... Of course the court sessions in this case are not open to the public on request of the prosecutor. The defense has declared that it wants to let the public in, but that the judges will most likely not agree to that.

217 points by pizza 5y ago

irthomasthomas 5y ago

kzrdude 5y ago
I don't see any connection at all
mrweasel 5y ago
It should be noted to our American friends that their reasoning isn’t some anti vaccine agenda, but the lack of critism of a government exibiting a more totalitarion retroric than Denmark is acustom to. There has been little critisim of the Covid handling until late last year, but a series of logical failures between the presented policies and actual implementation are now being reported on.
neom 5y ago
He allegedly leaked information to their domestic media about the NSA working with the Danish on spying missions.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mrweasel 5y ago

Two newspapers have also refused to let the police question their journalists, because it’s not specified why they want to interview them, and given that they won’t name sources, questioning becomes pointless.

duxup 5y ago
Do those requests usually go through a newspaper and not to the individual?
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  Maybe, but since it is work related, the individual journalist can still informs their newspaper and lawers who can take action.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mrweasel 5y ago
  No, they go to the individual, as explained in a debate on Danish TV yesterday. The journalists then bring the information to their employeers, which call their lawyers and handle the matter from there. The journalists aren’t legally required to allow themselfs to be questioned. That’s only if the case goes to court, but no one is refusing to testify in that case, because then the charges are public and a judge is present.

throwaway4good 5y ago

This is an absolutely bonkers story by Danish standard. The guy is amongst the highest ranking civil servants, holds the order of Dannebro. On top of this a number of Danish journalists have been "taken in for a chat" by the intelligence services. The charges are still secret, but appears to be related to this story: Danish secret service helped US spy on Germany's Angela Merkel: report https://www.dw.com/en/danish-secret-service-helped-us-spy-on-germanys-angela-merkel-report/a-57721901 https://www.dw.com/en/danish-secret-service-helped-us-spy-on...

miohtama 5y ago
Do fiber cables land in Denmark, or what special does Denmark have to make it a good partner for NSA?
- hammock 5y ago
  They are Nine Eyes (coalition that excludes Germany), willingly cooperative and with different charter/regulations than NSA. Bit of a tautological answer and I hope another commenter has more insight.
- 4gotunameagain 5y ago
  https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ Also Denmark has been a US protectorate for quite a while for reasons (e.g. Thule airforce base)
  - pc86 5y ago
    "Protectorate" has a very specific definition and Denmark is most certainly not one.
- poizan42 5y ago
  Exactly, more specifically Blåbjerg is one of the landing points of TAT-14 as well as Havfrue/AEC-2.
decebalus1 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lloydjones 5y ago

Borgen prophesised this!

csa 5y ago

My guess is that this guy said “no” to the wrong person, and this is payback. I will also guess that this chief is probably on the ethically correct side of the situation.

hutzlibu 5y ago
Do you have more information, than what is written in that article? Because I see your conclusion only as a vague possible hypothesis among many other options. And intelligence services are by default usually into very grey, if not dark areas of ethics. So all this might just as well be an internal power struggle of which the public will only get to view a very distorted picture, of what was actually going on.
- vintermann 5y ago
  Not really. He's charged with leaking to the media. There's only one story that's been recently leaked to the media: The one about helping NSA to spy on domestic and allied political leaders. Intelligence agencies can only wish they were able to distort the picture for the public reliably, and frequently mess things up. So the most likely explanation is the obvious, apparent one: He was shocked at the extent of the friendly spying, and leaked it to the media once it became clear it would be buried. The interesting thing is how Denmark will handle this.
  - goto11 5y ago
    > There's only one story that's been recently leaked to the media: The one about helping NSA to spy on domestic and allied political leaders. Actually several (apparently unrelated) stories have been leaked. One story about an intelligence operative who have been jailed for joining ISIS undercover, and one about a potential security threat from children of ISIS-supporters in camps in Syria. The one about NSA mad a bigger splash outside of Denmark, but the other cases where arguably more embarrassing for the Danish government.
- csa 5y ago
  > Do you have more information, than what is written in that article? No specifics, and I doubt that there will ever be any more unclassified specifics. That said, this is SOP for some sectors of the world. > Because I see your conclusion only as a vague possible hypothesis among many other options. Sure. That is probably how it will remain. > And intelligence services are by default usually into very grey, if not dark areas of ethics. Yep. > So all this might just as well be an internal power struggle of which the public will only get to view a very distorted picture, of what was actually going on. Yep.

Mizza 5y ago

Secret charges and courts corrupt democratic society. Extrajudicial "intelligence" agencies must be dismantled.

kzrdude 5y ago
Maybe arresting the director is a good first step? (Alas, it is not, because the conflict seems to be mostly about leaking info about the security state operations to media, not doing any such operations that they shouldn't have.)
tomjen3 5y ago
We have lots of secret charges in Denmark. Usually it is because there are more than one person involved and we don't want to tip anybody of. Often the identity of the person involved is also secret, but that is to protected that person, in case he or she is innocent. Such orders are always removed when the person is found guilty (to my knowledge anyway). I think charges have to be revealed when the actual proceedings start, and of course the defendant and their lawyers know.

topper-123 5y ago

The timeline of this is very strange: - in august he had been put on administrative leave - he was imprisoned on the 9th of december - on the 13th of december an independant commission set up by parliament (consisting of three judges) exponerated everyone implicated in this case - on the 14th of december, the minister of defence welcomed him back to work - today, 10th of january the public learned for the first time that he was imprisoned and still is imprisoned. So even though he was exonerated by the independent commitee AND welcomed back by the minister, he is actually in prison. Very strange situation, makes we wonder if there are aspects of the case the public does not know about, or if someone has made an enormous error.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
> experated I assume this is a typo for exonerated?
- pfortuny 5y ago
  That means to irritate but guess he meant exonerated.
- topper-123 5y ago
  Yes, corrected.
  - willhslade 5y ago
    Ah, yes, exponerated.
    - speed_spread 5y ago
      Innocence, squared.
SiempreViernes 5y ago
The charges are about leaking to the media, not for breaking the law when spying on Danes, the latter being what the commission was set up to investigate.

luser007 5y ago

A bit of background: Since WW2 Denmark has aligned itself with the US. This has been the consensus since then across all the major parties (Conservatives, Liberals, Social-Liberals and Social-Democratic (with a noteworthy exception[1])). The stance has during all those years from time to time been challenged by fringe parties like the Communist Party and the far-right Progress Party (who suggested that the Danish defence budget should be cut entirely and replaced with a answering machine saying "we surrender" in Russian). The Danish populace has not always wanted this "hard alignment". As an example, Denmark would not allow American bases in Denmark (contrary to UK, Germany, etc). But we allowed the Americans to build an Airforce Base at Thule on Greenland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Air_Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Air_Base). The Social-Democratic prime ministers also communicated publicly, that Denmark would not allow nuclear weapons in peacetime. Yet, it was communicated to the American ambassador in 1960 that Denmark would ignore it, if US had nuclear weapons at Thule (as long as they didn't tell anyone). All was well until 1968 when an American B-52 crashes near Thule with thermonuclear bombs on board. It is worth noting that English wikipedia does not have an account of the incident, but the Danish does: https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule-sagen_(1968) https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule-sagen_(1968) Well, the cold war "won" and after 1990s aligned even more with the US. In the late 90s the previously state-owned TeleDanmark company (telephony monopoly) was privatized and sold to the American company Ameritech beginning in 1997. Around the same time the Americans approached the Danish politicians again. And a deal similar to the nuclear weapons on Greenland was reached: "You're allowed to use our infrastructure to spy on people, but we're not going to make it official". As the same time Denmark was in "the coalition of the willing" sending troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, it is worth noting, that this is not a partisan issue within the Danish political elite. We've had Conservative, Liberal and Social-Democratic Ministers of Defence the last twenty years and they have all been briefed about this cooperation. The same goes for their permanent secretaries. Snowden revealed a lot about this cooperation back in 2015. The "nifty" part from the American perspective is, that they can tell the Danish "We won't spy on Danish people, only foreigners". They then approach Britain and says: "We won't spy on British people, only foreigners". The do the same with Norway, The Netherlands etc. and... well, suddenly they're able to spy on all Europeans. Denmark has a great position for spying because a lot of traffic from Eastern Europe travels through Denmark (and Sweden, but they are not part of NATO). Also, hearsay is that the spying on German Chancellor Merkel was done from Denmark. Around 2014 the Danish politicians decided to establish "Tilsynet med EfterretningsTjenesterne" (TET) aka. "Supervisory Authority on the Intelligence Agencies" to keep an eye on the intelligence agencies replacing some toothless organisation that previously had the task. In 2020 TET made a press release: "We cannot get the information we require from the intelligence agencies". The Minister of Defence at this time is Trine Bramsen, who is most known for complaining about nerds being hard to approach and understand for her friends and it is impossible to understand why they all wear white tennis socks (I kid you not: https://www.version2.dk/blog/opraab-til-it-noerderne-smid-tennissokkerne-og-tal-saa-vi-kan-forstaa-det-254054 https://www.version2.dk/blog/opraab-til-it-noerderne-smid-te... - use Google translate for a cringe experience). She is totally clueless. But that was great in this situation, because as any politician she wants to show how she can solve issues in a resolute manner. So she sends home a bunch of civil servants (including head of the Defence Intelligence Agency, a previous permanent secretary, etc. The top brass). Apparently she didn't get (or understand) the verbal memo about: "Don't ask and don't tell about our cooperation with the Americans". Like an elephant in a porcelain store. And retired Ministers of Defence were all gunning at her for "ruining the cooperation with our greatest allies" etc. They, of course, do not want it to be revealed, that they had this information. Well. Time passes. And just before Christmas it was announced that the matter has been investigated. The public are not allowed to hear, what has been investigated. Or who. But the conclusion is that the intelligence agencies has done nothing wrong. Nothing to see here. Move along. A couple of days later, the directors (not the editors!) at a couple of major newspapers are called to a meeting with the head of the Police Intelligence Agency and the Defence Military Agency (temp head) where they are politely told: "We just want to let you know, that harming our cooperation with foreign powers carry a 12 year sentence" (it's a very long sentence in Danish terms). The Police Intelligence Agency has been playing "whack a mole", literally, for some time: Who leaked to TET? Who leaked to the press? We are currently in a situation, where the state-sponsored national Danish broadcaster (DR) is reporting, that the Police Intelligence Agency (PET) has been surveilling, including wire-tapping, the head of the Defence Intelligence Agency: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/hemmelig-pet-taskforce-aflyttede-spionchef-lars-findsen-i-maanedsvis-afsloere-laek https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/hemmelig-pet-taskforce-afl... (again, Google translate). I hope this provides some context. There has since the 1960s been an understanding in the top of Danish society that "The Americans are our friends, we cannot say 'no'.". Even if the Danish population has been kept in the dark. A clueless Minister of Defence by accident kicks the hornet's nest and now somebody must take the fall. But be aware that they're all in on it. No minister (left or right) is innocent and the same goes for the civil servants at the very top. But it is not all bad! Whereas Germany was earlier our primary trading partner, Denmark nowadays export more to the US than to our neighbouring country. A few dead soldiers and no privacy for your population was totally worth it. [1] During the 1980s some parts of the Social-Democrats wanted Denmark to re-align. This caused the so-called "footnote politic". Whenever NATO wanted to take some initiative, the Danish foreign minister had to negotiate footnotes saying "Denmark is not part of this and that".

dirtyid 5y ago

Was matter of time before effected EU countries start tackling US infiltration. Surprised this is handled so publically.

danielovichdk 5y ago

"Microsofts datacenterregion vil sikre Forsvaret adgang til IT- og datakapacitet, som vi ikke kan udvikle selv. Mange af de løsninger, vi er afhængige af i fremtiden – inklusive løsninger, der bygger på kunstig intelligens – kræver computerkraft, der kun er mulig ved brug af cloud-løsninger. Jeg ser derfor frem til samarbejdet med Microsoft i forhold til de konkrete muligheder, som den nye datacenterregion åbner for Forsvaret,” siger Kristian Vengsgaard, Chief Information Officer i Forsvaret" Source: https://news.microsoft.com/da-dk/2020/12/07/microsoft-investerer-i-danmark/ https://news.microsoft.com/da-dk/2020/12/07/microsoft-invest...

danielovichdk 5y ago
Translated "Microsoft's data center region will ensure the Armed Forces access to IT and data capacity that we cannot develop ourselves. Many of the solutions we depend on in the future - including solutions based on artificial intelligence - require computing power that is only possible using cloud solutions. I therefore look forward to the collaboration with Microsoft in relation to the specific opportunities that the new data center region opens up for the Armed Forces, ”says Kristian Vengsgaard, Chief Information Officer in the Armed Forces"
HumanReadable 5y ago
I have a feeling the computing demand for every AI use case the Danish military could want to pursue, could be met by a few mainframes with fewer security risks. Given the work that goes into verifying the data center meets some assumably very high requirements, I imagine mainframes might even be the cheaper solution too. Seems to me like yet another example of companies successfully lobbying governments to buy unnecessary things.

olliej 5y ago

Seems like the type of group we could definitely trust to have access to “emergency use only” back doors in encryption algorithms.

type0 5y ago

Does Denmark have secret courts like US?

nelgaard 5y ago
Not officially and not like the US. However for about 10 years there have been issued warrants without the name of the court and judges on them in terror-related cases: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/danmark-har-hemmelige-dommere https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/danmark-har-hemmelige-domm... Of course the court sessions in this case are not open to the public on request of the prosecutor. The defense has declared that it wants to let the public in, but that the judges will most likely not agree to that.