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Denmark: PET involved in "illegal" surveillance

01 September 1998

Suspicions that the Danish security service (PET) were involved in the illegal surveillance and registration of, mainly leftist, dissidents have been confirmed by the discovery of documents in the PET archive. These reveal that in 1968 the head of the service instructed his officers to continue its surveillance even though its cessation had been ordered by the prime minister. It was another 6 years before the practice was halted in 1974.

A former PET chief, Jorn Bro, has claimed that no rules were broken despite the fact that people in leading positions in the communist and socialist parties continued to be surveilled. We acted correctly and within the rules of the law he insisted. He asserted that leading figures in the Communist Party (DKP) and the Radical Socialist Party (VS) were not covered by the ban because PET's function was to service the government in the best possible way.

Bro's interpretation received support from former top judge, Frank Poulssen, who was one of the architects of the government's instruction. The Justice Minister at the time, Knud Thorup, agreed that PET was allowed to file members of leftist parties after 1968.

The disclosure of the illegal surveillance prompted the current Danish Justice Minister, Frank Jansen, to present new proposals for legislation to parliament. Under the new proposals a committee, consisting of a judge, a lawyer and a legal academic (jurist), would be formed to conduct a thorough investigation of the PET. However, even before the new proposal was presented it received criticism. While the minister would like sensitive parts of the investigation to be held "in camera" critics insist that it should be public.