Sharp criticism is now being leveled at Claus Hjort Frederiksen (V) for – as the first former Minister of Defense – officially confirming that Denmark has “an agreement with the NSA”. And that the collaboration is about “cable tapping”.
It writes Jyllands-Posten.
The NSA is a US intelligence service.
The statements from Claus Hjort Frederiksen fall in an interview with Jyllands-Posten as part of his harsh criticism of Minister of Defense Trine Bramsen (S) and her handling of the current case of possible illegalities and lies in the Defense Intelligence Service (FE).
Not least, Claus Hjort Frederiksen problematizes that Trine Bramsen, according to him, allowed the Danish Intelligence Service (TET) to issue a press release on the case on 24 August.
In this way, she put our partners ‘trust and generations’ work with Danish security out of control, Hjort believes.
According to his predecessor, Bramsen should have stopped the press release and “ensured that it was not trumpeted for the whole world that we had an agreement with the NSA”.
Asked whether he is not really the first former minister to officially confirm the existence of an agreement between Denmark and the NSA, Claus Hjort Frederiksen answers:
– Yes, I might. But there are limits to how big the hypocrisy can be around this, he says to Jyllands-Posten.
In the Unity List, defense spokesperson Eva Flyvholm – on the basis of the former Minister of Defense’s statements to Jyllands-Posten and previous statements to Weekendavisen – accuses Claus Hjort Frederiksen of “hypocrisy”.
– Trine Bramsen has been silent like an oyster.
– Claus Hjort and the Liberal Party try to distort the case to a question of process and the Minister of Defense’s handling, even though V-ministers themselves sit and tell in detail about what the case is about, and say far more than what the Minister or the Authority has at any time said , says Eva Flyvholm to Jyllands-Posten.
Weekendavisen has previously written that Poul Nyrup as Prime Minister in the late 1990s signed an agreement that gave FE access to eavesdrop on a central data cable in Copenhagen.
And that the NSA has since gained access to that data, and that changing defense ministers have known about the agreement.
Link to quoted article on Jyllands-Posten’s website
Source: The Nordic Page