Norway Admits Spying Phone Calls in Conflict Areas Around the World

Heatmap1_thumb
Color-coded global heat maps: A pictographic portrayal of the extent of NSA surveillance around the world, ranging from green, depicting the least amount of monitoring, to red, indicating the highest level of surveillance

Lt. Gen. Kjell Grandhagen, Norway’s military intelligence chief, admitted the fact that his country monitors and intercepts voice calls from around the world and shares them with the allies, including the United States.

Spy chief said that his government doesn’t carry out any sort of surveillance in Norway, however, all the surveillance efforts — involving interception of millions of calls – are carried out in conflict areas around the world.

These revelations were made after NSA surveillance program was unearthed by Edward Snowden.

According to leaks shared by Edward Snowden, Pakistan remained top 5th target of US National Security Agency for spying and surveillance. Estimates suggest that 13.5 billion phone calls and emails from and with-in Pakistan were intercepted by NSA and its allying agencies.

It merits mentioning here that Norwegian government – that helped NSA in spying communication in various countries – has 54% shares in Telenor Group that operates in major Asian markets including Pakistan.

When asked if Telenor Pakistan assisted Norwegian Military Intelligence in intercepting communication of Pakistani mobile and internet users, the company refuted the possibility.

Telenor Pakistan instead said that is a responsible corporate citizen and follows the laws of Pakistan diligently. Telenor said that access to its network is only provided as per the local law, regulations and directives stipulated by the government, judiciary and the regulator.

It is still unclear that how Norwegian Military Intelligence intercepted telephony and internet communication outside Norway.

Telenor Pakistan said it can not cannot comment on the actions of the Norwegian Armed Forces.

Tech and telecom reporter for over 15 years


  • Are these international or local calls?
    Can they intercept Ufone to Ufone calls for instance?

    • Pakistan’s Domestic Voice Traffic includes Uphone are trapped by international intelligent , authentic source share that information in Magazine in 2013

  • If Telenor Pakistan is supporting NSA or any of its alloy to monitor Pakistan’s Domestic Voice Traffic then it’s our (nation) responsibility to get rid of Telenor who is making profits from Pakistani customers and International agencies.

  • I think any specific operator helping out is an absurd idea since they monitor overall communication, not just one network. It’s not like terrorist like to use a specific operator becoz their brand ambassadors are more Islamic :) on top of that, our own military intelligence wings have legal intercepts which are just as susceptible to hacking or monitoring……I mean if Osama can live near the PMA for years, monitoring calls isn’t that big a deal…..

  • Answer to how they could have done is, there could be many possibilities, one of them being: They could have bugged the systems of all operators with the help of their agent employees working on key technical posts of all operators. However, this is just a assumption but many such possibilities are there. BTW, this one sounds most likely to me.

  • Government will pass Electronic crime bill, And we will arrest all of them who do unauthorized interceptions.

  • Yar yah sab calls ko kasy sunty hain..? atna ink pass kasy time hota hai k har call ko sunty hian ? yah sun sun k pagl nai hoty?

  • All those cursing and pointing fingers on Telenor Pakistan specially Mr. Writer, just a simple info. Telenor Group owns 42.9% shares of Vimplecom that is the parent company of Mobilink. Sooooo…its not just telenor pakistan that is under Norwegians control but also mobilink to some extent.
    Unfortunately writer get monthly cheques from all 4 operators except Telenor thats why Telenor always get bashed on this blog. There is quite similarity between Altaf bhai and Aamir bhai…both are bhatta mafia :D
    And here goes my message…delete it boss like you always do, cant face the true criticism :)

  • This is not about the topic but the ad being displayed on the page. Pro Pakistani is a decent site to be visited by decent people. Please review the ad and filter them as currently “Top 5 Football Girls” is being displayed in bra.

    • hahahaha…these ads appear based on every individuals browsing history. What you are seeing is because of your deeds :P
      better clean yourself instead of complaining :)

  • i don’t know why people are not looking at map… it is red even outside Pakistan.. but all fight is about Pakistan specially Telenor.. spying is a different kind of business and equipment/tools used into it are not well known by general public e.g. IMEI catchers, Dummy base stations, gateways etc… hardware surveillance is also possible because of govt. level support…

  • Telenor is an alley of US Military … in case of Osama bin Ladin 0346 code was used which belongs to Telenor pakistan and same is the case with Shakeel Afridi . kick these Rats out of country and try bycott Telenor as much as possible … Pakistan First


  • Get Alerts

    Follow ProPakistani to get latest news and updates.


    ProPakistani Community

    Join the groups below to get latest news and updates.



    >