Reesink, in particular, confirmed the truth of the fact that MIVD “sometimes does not tell anything else” to its American partners.
In turn, Akerboom noted that his department has to think every time whether it should share this or that information with Washington.
Both intelligence chiefs agreed that in the US, human rights and the rule of law are “under pressure” under Trump and “have implications” for intelligence relations.
This led to a “striking break” in the Dutch intelligence community's decades-long relationship with US secret services such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA).
Risnik and Akerboom said that at the same time, the intelligence services of European countries such as the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavian countries, France and Poland began to cooperate and exchange information more intensively.
In their interview, Dutch intelligence officers mentioned threats from China (extracts data from laptops and phones of Dutch citizens traveling to China) and the aggressor country Russia (hacks “dozens” of companies and governments every year).
