Norway proposes tougher espionage laws — Anadolu Agency

The Norwegian government has proposed tightening legislation to counter the activities of foreign intelligence services and expanding the investigative powers of the Police Security Service (PST). Anadolu Agency reports, citing Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

A broader range of criminal acts

The proposed changes envisage criminalizing a broader range of actions that may support operations by foreign intelligence services. In particular, collecting both non-public and openly available information for foreign intelligence could become illegal if such activity threatens public interests.

The government also proposes making it easier to prosecute people who use false identities to gather information for foreign states.

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New tools for PST

The legislative amendments are intended to give PST broader powers to use covert investigative measures to prevent, detect and investigate violations of the new rules.

Justice Minister Astri Aas-Hansen told NRK that the changes are needed because of new methods of gathering intelligence. According to her, state actors may collect data that is not necessarily secret, but whose combination can harm national interests.