Norway's intelligence services said they, not the US National Security Agency, collected data on more than 33 million phone conversations in Norway over the space of one month last year.
The comments came following a report on Tuesday by Dagbladet, the
Norwegian daily, that said the NSA collected the ‘meta data’ on
the private phone calls of over 33 million Norwegian phone calls
last December and January.
Norwegian intelligence says it voluntarily shares the collected
data with the Americans in the name of security.
"This is data collection by Norwegian intelligence to support
Norwegian military operations in conflict areas abroad, or
connected to the fight against terrorism, also abroad,"
Lieutenant General Kjell Grandhagen, head of the Norwegian
Intelligence Service, told a news conference.
"This was not data collection from Norway against Norway, but
Norwegian data collection that is shared with the Americans."
Dagbladet's report was based on top secret documents made public
by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald, the
former Guardian journalist who first broke the story on Snowden's
revelations.
The newspaper said it was privy to a top secret document,
entitled, "Norway - Last 30 days", that shows that between
December 12th last year and January 8th, the NSA had collected
the meta data on 33,186,042 calls in the Scandinavian country.
The original report did not mention that the Norwegian
intelligence service was collecting the data and sharing it with
the Americans.
The NSA claims it does not collect content on the communications,
but rather the 'meta data', such as the duration of the calls,
the telephone numbers of the caller and the call recipient, and
the location of the phone at the time the call was placed.
Before it was known that Norwegian intelligence was collecting
the meta data on telephone calls, as opposed to the NSA, Oslo was
criticizing the reports alleging American spying.
"It is unacceptable for allies to engage in intelligence
against each other's political leadership," Norwegian justice
minister Anders Anundsen said in a statement after the report was
published on Tuesday.
Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's prime minister at the time the NSA was
reportedly casting its net, said that he had not been informed of
the monitoring when he discussed the situation with senior US
officials after news of the NSA revelations was making headlines
in June.
"I have not been informed of the sort of monitoring which is
now being described," he told NRK. "The information that
is now coming out shows that it is necessary to go a second round
with the Americans. It is important to get the facts and then
evaluate them."
The US Embassy in Oslo declined to comment on the revelations:
"When it comes to intelligence activity, we cannot comment on
individual cases. The United States collects intelligence
overseas, as every nation does."