Operation Dunhammer (Danish for ''Operation
Typha
''Typha'' is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrush or reedmace, in American English as reed, cattail, or punks, in A ...
'') was an internal investigation conducted by the
Danish Defence Intelligence Service
The Danish Defence Intelligence Service, DDIS ( da, Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste, FE), is a Danish intelligence agency, responsible for Denmark’s foreign intelligence, as well as being the Danish military intelligence service. DDIS is an a ...
(, FE) which concluded the agency cooperated with the American
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...
to
wiretap
Telephone tapping (also wire tapping or wiretapping in American English) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet-based conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitorin ...
senior politicians, government officials, and government entities of certain
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
countries.
Report
Due to concerns following
Edward Snowden's leaking of the NSA's
global surveillance operations, the Danish Defence Intelligence Service began the investigation the following year. The investigation ended in 2015, concluding that the NSA collaborated with the FE to
eavesdrop
Eavesdropping is the act of secretly or stealthily listening to the private conversation or communications of others without their consent in order to gather information.
Etymology
The verb ''eavesdrop'' is a back-formation from the noun ''eaves ...
on prominent politicians from 2012 to 2014, among them German chancellor
Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Oppo ...
, leader of the opposition
Peer Steinbrück
Peer Steinbrück (born 10 January 1947) is a German politician who was the Chancellor-candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the 2013 federal election. Steinbrück served as the eighth Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia f ...
, and foreign minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier
Frank-Walter Steinmeier (; born 5 January 1956) is a German politician serving as President of Germany since 19 March 2017. He was previously Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2017, as well as Vice Chan ...
.
This was done through the use of the NSA's
XKeyscore
XKeyscore (XKEYSCORE or XKS) is a secret computer system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for searching and analyzing global Internet data, which it collects in real time. The NSA has shared XKeyscore with other intellige ...
computer system, which probed data travelling through
underwater internet cables in intercept stations such as , similar to the
ECHELON
ECHELON, originally a secret government code name, is a surveillance program (signals intelligence/SIGINT collection and analysis network) operated by the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement:Given the 5 dialects that use ...
program.
Information about the report was released publicly by a consortium involving
DR,
Sveriges Television
Sveriges Television AB ("Sweden's Television Stock Company"), shortened to SVT (), is the Sweden, Swedish national public broadcasting, public television broadcaster, funded by a public service tax on personal income set by the Riksdag (national ...
,
NRK
NRK, an abbreviation of the Norwegian ''Norsk Rikskringkasting Aksjeselskap, AS'', generally expressed in English as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, is the Norwegian government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company, and ...
,
Norddeutscher Rundfunk
Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR; ''Northern German Broadcasting'') is a public broadcasting, public radio and television broadcaster, based in Hamburg. In addition to the city-state of Hamburg, NDR broadcasts for the German states of Lower Saxony, M ...
,
Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (''West German Broadcasting Cologne''; WDR, ) is a German public-broadcasting institution based in the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia with its main office in Cologne. WDR is a constituent member of the conso ...
,
Süddeutsche Zeitung
The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of SZ is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and social-democrat.
History ...
, and
Le Monde
''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
on 30 May 2021, following an investigation by the aforementioned organisations.
Aftermath
Dunhammer's findings were privately released in 2015, but led to no immediate repercussions among the FE, with collaborations between the FE and NSA continuing as normal.
In August 2020,
Trine Bramsen who was recently appointed
Danish minister of defence in June of the previous year was told of the operation, following which agency head
Lars Findsen and three other officials were suspended.
See also
*
Crypto AG
Crypto AG was a Swiss company specialising in communications and information security founded by Boris Hagelin in 1952. The company was secretly purchased for US $5.75 million and jointly owned by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) a ...
, company owned by U.S. intel purportedly to spy on other countries
*
Dropmire
Dropmire is a surveillance program by the United States' National Security Agency (NSA) aimed at surveillance of foreign embassies and diplomatic staff, including those of NATO allies. The program's existence was revealed in June 2013 by whistleb ...
*
Spying on United Nations leaders by United States diplomats Spying on United Nations leaders by United States diplomats was confirmed by a 2009 confidential directive from the United States Department of State directly instructing US diplomats to spy on top officials of the United Nations. The intelligence ...
*
Notes
References
{{reflist
National Security Agency operations
Espionage scandals and incidents
Denmark–United States relations
Surveillance scandals
Political scandals in Denmark