The revelations appear to be connected with the surprise firing of Lars Findsen, director of the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (FE, or DDIS in English), in August of this year. It was reported at the time that Findsen was fired following a series of whistleblower revelations. However, almost nothing was released by the Danish government about the precise nature of the revelations. It was claimed that the revelations concerned “improper intelligence collection practices”.

It now appears that the whistleblower revelations concerned a secret intelligence collection agreement struck between the DDIS and the US National Security Agency (NSA) in 2008. According to the agreement the NSA would help the DDIS tap a number of fiber optic Internet cables that pass through Danish territory, in return for being given access to the content of intercepted traffic. This collaboration was physically facilitated at a data-processing center located on the Danish island of Amager, south of the Danish capital Copenhagen, which was allegedly built for that purpose.

In 2015, however, a Danish whistleblower approached the Danish Oversight Board, known as TET, which is responsible for supervising the work of Denmark’s intelligence agencies. The whistleblower alleged that the Amager data-processing center had been used by the NSA to spy on Danish targets, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance. Moreover, a list of the keywords used by the NSA between 2012 and 2015 to flag Internet traffic allegedly suggests that the governments of Germany, France, Sweden, Norway and Holland were also targeted.

The revelation has prompted a heated political discussion in Denmark, while Norwegian, Swedish and Dutch authorities have launched investigations into the alleged spying. Some in Denmark are now calling for the Minister of Defense, Trine Bramsen, to release to the public a four-volume report produced by the TET about the alleged DDIS-NSA collaboration.