US intelligence has spent years spying on the Netherlands and other allies

A whistleblower has revealed that the US intelligence agency, NSA, has been taking advantage of an agreement with Denmark for years to spy on the Netherlands and other surrounding allies.

Danish military service FE tapped Danish internet cables with the help of the Americans in 2008, for which they made an agreement. Through this agreement, the NSA was given access to cables running to Eastern Europe. FE collaborated with the NSA to process data in a data centre near Copenhagen Airport.

But unbeknownst to Denmark, the NSA used their access to these cables to spy on Denmark, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, reports NOS.

The whistleblower

A former employee of the Danish service FE was concerned about the Danish-American cooperations and wrote an internal report. When this report was ignored, he leaked the reports to a supervisory authority. An investigation was then launched and the whistleblower put several FE officials on temporary suspensions in the summer.

Sources at the Dutch secret service are reluctant to share how much they knew about the situation. “Everyone spies,” an employee told De Volkskrant.

What do you make of this dubious move by NSA? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

Feature Image: Pixabay/Pixabay

Emily Burger
Emily Burger
Emily grew up in South Africa but has also lived in Egypt, the UK, Canada and now the Netherlands. She first came here for her Bachelors in Arts and Culture at Maastricht University and soon fell in love with the land of canals, clogs and cheese. When she's not daydreaming about sci-fi movies or countries yet to explore, you can find her writing for DutchReview.

2 COMMENTS

  1. I should think, hope, The Netherlands also spies on The United States. There is no country that shouldn’t be spied upon. Today’s friends may well be tomorrow’s enemies.

  2. @Glenn Christmas
    Only the USA have a list with enemies, because of their war-like megalomania. Other non US-intelligences have nothing to do and out of boredom of searching something they couldn’t find in their own country (internet has no borders) …. and not want to play games during working hours…. or to get jobless…. their fantasy will go the same as this text :-).

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