"The fact that the head of the Danish Military Intelligence Service is a willing participant in circumventing the agency tasked with holding his own intelligence service legally accountable is mind-blowing and must be deeply concerning to the minister."
Military Intelligence goes back to doing whatever they like with a shared understanding from those in power (yet not expressed as such).
The secret intelligence services in your country are not working for you or your safety, and this is not a secret. If you believe so you have not been following the news the last thirty years (before that they had a scape goat for their behaviour).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_thwarted_Islamic_terro...
https://www.google.com/search?q=ring+wing+terror+plot+foiled...
There's a balance here. To be free, we have to protect ourselves from plots like these, otherwise we would live in fear. At the same time, this protection itself threatens other kinds of freedom, like the freedom from surveillance and interference by our own governments. We have to be cognizant of this balance. We need whistle-blowers, watchdogs, and so on. But we also need state intelligence.
Number of people working in education: 342100.
It won't make a dent.
For comparison, FBI Counterintelligence Division alone has 1-2 people per 10,000 Americans. Add different intelligence and surveillance agencies under DHS and others to that list and it's easy to see that the US has insane amount of domestic surveillance manpower per capita.
The threat model is different. No terrorist attacks of serious kind were performed as of yet but plans were found for terrorist attacks in Copenhagen. Something akin to what happened in Germany. The threat seem real.
I expect you meant "go rogue" but "go rouge", as in red/communist/russian, also works in the context.
https://www.thelocal.dk/20161021/danish-man-ran-scandinavian...
We would have to immediately defund that agency.
I thought that was the case in most countries, so they get around it by getting their buddies to do it for them, hence five-eyes (or n-eyes).
Oh wait, that’s the system (via China/Russia) that our intelligence agencies are helping protect us against.
[0] https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Intelligence+in+An+Insecure+Worl...
Anecdotally that claim seems untrue. Intelligence services have had a tangible effect on world history.[1][2][3]
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma
My suggestion is that it's better to focus on the myths and failings of your own government, as they directly affect you.
First of all, there’s asymmetrical warfare. Russia’s investment in cyber, hypersonic, etc.
China’s investment in medium range missiles to create access denial for the US in the pacific.
Plus factor in that the US budget is bloated because of these corrupt fat cat defense industry companies, huge waste, etc...
To beat the world, we have to outspend the rest of the world combined on defense.
Perhaps the greatest danger to American defense is insider threats. If the looming danger from insider threats is stark enough, we will absolutely need to find a way to outspend ourselves on defense.
> Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article.
What intrigues me is the claim "intelligence work is never useful". This is easily falsifiable with Wikipedia, which I assume even university professors deign to glance at on occasion. It's such a weird statement to make I feel like there's either more or GGP is mis-remembering something important from the book.
You forgot the most important:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway
>Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare",[9] [...] Most significantly, American cryptographers were able to determine the date and location of the planned attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to prepare its own ambush.
> Admiral Nimitz had one critical advantage: US cryptanalysts had partially broken the Japanese Navy's JN-25b code. Since early 1942, the US had been decoding messages stating that there would soon be an operation at objective "AF". It was initially not known where "AF" was, but Commander Joseph Rochefort and his team at Station HYPO were able to confirm that it was Midway: Captain Wilfred Holmes devised a ruse of telling the base at Midway (by secure undersea cable) to broadcast an uncoded radio message stating that Midway's water purification system had broken down. Within 24 hours, the code breakers picked up a Japanese message that "AF was short on water". No Japanese radio operators who intercepted the message seemed concerned that the Americans were broadcasting uncoded that a major naval installation close to the Japanese threat ring was having a water shortage, which could have tipped off Japanese intelligence officers that it was a deliberate attempt at deception.
The military intelligence are allowed to do whatever it takes to defend against foreign powers, but they are not allowed to gather intelligence on Danish citizens. If they uncover something that involved danish citizens or internal threats in the course of their work they are supposed to hand it over to the police intelligence service. As I understand part of the scandal is that this has not happened, compounded by active measures to cover things up towards the oversight committee.
Giving up all your rights in the name of endless wars on everything is a path to a sad ending for the US and the world.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-spectrum_dominance
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militarisation_of_space#United...
Wow their military must be much smarter than ours. Or perhaps they are held responsible for their performance?
...US budget is bloated because of these corrupt fat cat defense industry companies, huge waste, etc...
So... does all of this argue for more or less civilian oversight?
They’re just more nimble because they’re top-down leadership. Not as good at expressing the people’s will, but more nimble at implementing autocratic decisions.
Here are the points I think are highlights:
> That FE has on several occasions since the Authority's establishment in 2014 and until the summer of 2020 - in connection with, among other things, the Authority's specific inspections and meetings with the head of FE - has withheld key and crucial information for the Authority and given the Authority incorrect information about the service's collection and disclosure.
> That there is an inappropriate culture of legality in FE's management and parts of the service, where the service's possible unjustified activities or inappropriate circumstances are shelved, including by failing to inform the supervisory authority of matters relevant to its control.
> The submitted material indicates that FE, prior to the establishment of the Authority in 2014, has initiated operational activities in violation of Danish law, including by obtaining and passing on a significant amount of information about Danish citizens.
> That FE has unjustifiably processed information about an employee in the supervision. (TET)
Your foreign policy has had horrendous effects on the world for the last 50+ years.
Yes I’m sure we are the foes of Europe (30 countries), of South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Australia, NZ.
Of Brazil, Mexico, the Carib, Colombia.
Georgia.
The list goes on and on. Countries in our sphere are doing very well. They have democratic governments.
Yes there are some stupid foreign policies I abhor as much as you. So if something is wrong a few times, it’s completely evil? Laughable. Apply that logic to the rest of the world and see what you get.
s/three-quarters-billion-dollars-a-year/three-quarters-trillion-dollars-a-year/
When we talk about intelligence and counter-terrorism, it's more about preventing terrorist attacks than reacting to them.
The UK is more open with statistics than the US — their most senior counter-terrorism officer claims that they foiled 22 terrorist attacks from March 2017 to September 2019 [1].
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/09/foiled-terro...
In the US that would be handled by the FBI -- they're legally the only ones that can spy on citizens in in the US. They work hand-in-glove with other agencies, but they own domestic.
A non-US example would be Russia, where the FSB (which Putin used to be the head of) handles internal investigations and counterintelligence like the FBI, while the SVR handles foreign intelligence. Or MI5 vs MI6 in the UK, etc.
Whereas China/Russia has people tracking dissidents etc.
Not even in the same realm.
Im saying give a more nuanced legal approach so we can defend ourselves.
This seems like a fairly extraordinary claim that you haven’t backed with either evidence or logic.
If you want to die on the hill of a subjective concept of morality, fine. But I don’t and I don’t think most do.
If you think the USA doesn't track dissidents you've been walking around with your eyes and ears shut.
If you hear rumblings about a heist it makes sense to monitor the conspirators even if they have not yet done the heist.
Being a dissident, not so much.