Following the Copenhagen attack the Danish government is taking new security measures.
One of these “counter-terror” measure is giving more power to the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (FE), Denmark’s foreign intelligence service.
The service will be given the ability to conduct surveillance on citizens abroad without a court order.
The think-tank Justitia and University of Copenhagen professor Anders Henriksen analyzed the authority given to FE under the government’s proposal and concluded that its powers would outreach both the NSA and GCHQ if the plan gets approved. “The rules that apply to both the NSA and GCHQ’s surveillance of their own citizens abroad contain better guarantees for due process than the FE proposal”.
The head of FE, Thomas Ahrenkiel (picture), declined to comment on the analysis but Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt earlier this week defended the FE proposal, which was one of 12 counter-terror initiatives proposed last week.
The PM says : “If a Syrian and an Iraqi are speaking together in Syria, we have the authority to listen in on what they are saying or find out what they are doing. But if a Dane gets on the line, we cannot listen in longer. In that situation, we can’t sit around and wait for a judge’s approval before going in and finding out what is going on”.
Defence Minister Nicolai Wammen also defended the proposal, saying that it includes built-in controls.
Source : http://www.thelocal.dk/20150225/danish-military-spooks-to-get-more-power-than-nsa
