Norway: POT electronic databases out of control
01 March 1999
In 1990 the Norwegian security police (POT, Politiets efterretningstjeneste) upgraded their surveillance capabilities by installing electronic databases. The files were kept secret not only from supervising bodies but also the chief of police and the National Police Board. This means their use has been unsupervised and effectively under no control whatsoever; POT even kept the registers secret from the Lund commission. It was the newly reformed Parliamentary Supervising Committee (SK, Stortingets kontrolludvalg) that uncovered the existence of the registers. There has been a major quarrel between the SK and the Norwegian military concerning the extent of the committee's oversight. According to Norwegian television, the argument concerns one of the committee, Stein Ornhi, who is a member of a socialist party (Socialistisk Venstreparti). Military intelligence officers apparently fear that intelligence organisations in other countries will limit sharing information with them if a socialist has a role in overseeing the their work. According to POT the secret registers were meant to be temporary and only used to look into specific events.