National Defence Radio Establishment (Sweden)

The Försvarets radio Institution ( FRA; German: Radio Establishment of Defence ) is a Swedish news service for communications intelligence. Organised he is as an independent task force of military intelligence MUST. MUST provides its capacities also to other services and reports directly to the Swedish Ministry of Defence. The service was founded in 1942.

Core of the FRA makes a great listening station with attached analysis and evaluation department, with the help of both military and civilian intelligence gathered by radio- electronic surveillance. FRA is also responsible for the secure military communications of the Swedish armed forces, as well as for cryptographic tasks such as (de) encryption of secret messages. The service also works in the field of radar surveillance.

Legal anchoring and competences

FRA is considered non-military organization of the Ministry of Defence. Funding in 2008 claims to be at 562 million Swedish crowns ( around 57 million euros ). Supervisory body is the Military Intelligence Commission.

In the criticism came FRA, after a majority of the center-right government of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt an enabling act Lag 2008:717 om signalspaning i försvarsunderrättelseverksamhet, adopted in the Swedish Parliament on 18 June 2008, the service far-reaching powers for domestic spying grant. As justification for the law, the ruling conservative government called the " external threat " by " international terrorism".

FRA may monitor since then without a court order and given suspicion the content of all communications of the Swedish citizens abroad. Included is the communication via e -mail, SMS, internet and fax, and voice telephony. Since January 2009, recorded " Försvarets radio institution " not only the connection data (as with the German data retention ) but collects and analyzes the contents of the communication. Because some e- mails, for example, walk around on the way from Göteborg to Sundsvall half the globe, according to industry experts, a separation of domestic and foreign channels is impossible anyway. The law met with wide protest from the public. Criticism of the law itself came from " beneficiaries " of the National Police Agency ( Rikspolisstyrelsen ), the domestic intelligence SÄPO, the Ministry of Justice, of the lawyer and the journalist association of newspaper publishers and by telecommunication company TeliaSonera.

Data forwarding to the NSA

As part of the monitoring and spying affair of 2013 it was announced that the FRA has forwarded data to the U.S. National Security Agency and to the British Government Communications Headquarters.