In the aftermath of the Lund Commission, a central view was that the Norwegian Police Security Service was lying on the ground with a broken back. Many people thought that the report had compromised the security service. Now, two years after the report was presented, a new act concerning the right to "see one's file", is being put forward. The contents of this act are that the reorganised security authorities are to be given full control over which material that can be withheld review. When we take this into account together with modernised laws for intelligence activities and revised plans for internment in an emergency situation, we must conclude that the ruling class is far from downgrading its activities concerning control over and preparations for a strike against those in opposition, when threatened. The Lund Commission knocked some cracks in the democratic facade, which we must use to our advantage in the political struggle, in order to disclose the dictatorial apparatus of power behind parliamentary democracy. We must see both the report's positive effects and its limitations.
The mandate of the Lund Commission was to investigate whether the secret services have been engaged in illegal or irregular surveillance of Norwegian citizens. The commission was appointed by Parliament on February 1, 1994 as a result of many disclosures over a long period about surveillance of the left in Norway. A favourable parliamentary situation with much discontent with the Labour Party's monopoly of power in Norwegian politics gave the Lund Commission [named after its leader, a Supreme Court judge] both a mandate and peace to work. When the extensive report was finished, it became clear within a day or two that the report couldn't be withheld and shown to only a couple of parliamentary committees - it became downgraded and made generally public. The report gives us a thorough documentation and gives answers to the following questions: What is the bourgeoisie's picture of the internal enemy? What methods does the bourgeoisie have at its disposal for suppression of the internal opposition? What kind of prejudices does the bourgeoisie need create in order to legalise its picture of the internal enemy and its methods?
The report ascertains that as for AKP(m-l) and organisations that were closely affiliated, there was close on to a full registration. Approximately 20,000 individual cases were established in the archives. Even slight suspicions of sympathy were enough to open a case of observation. Of cases where only political activity is registered (i.e. the file does not contain any other type of information.), 88 % were so-called Marxist-Leninist-(m-l)-related (NKP [Norway Communist Party, i.e the Moscow-related group] 3 %, extreme right 2 %). According to the report, the reason for this was "that the party declared that it was revolutionary, practised political military service aimed at weakening the military apparatus, trained in the use of weapons, infiltrated organisational and commercial organisations, had as its aim to destabilise society, had contacts with organisations suspected for terrorism, because of the secrecy of the organisations activities, and because of a well-founded suspicion that AKP(m-l) has received economic aid from China."
The surveillance of AKP and organisations that had the slightest co-operation with it is so extensive that the term police state about Norway gives full meaning. When the report in addition shows the historical roots of these activities with extensive surveillance of NKP after the second world war, with surveillance of the opposition in the Labour Party and the trade unions, it fills out a picture of a constitution that presupposes surveillance in order to obtain stability. 52 % of all cases are political cases. 74 % of these are m-l-related (while NKP 15 %, extreme right 2 %).
The Lund Report revealed that many of the methods used by the Norwegian Police Security Service were counter to instructions, or that rules were bent to meet to immediate needs. F.ex.:
After more than 10 years of surveillance, without information that strengthened the suspicion of preparations for an armed revolution, still no analysis was made of AKP to ascertain if it represented a threat to security. No court case has been raised against AKP on any basis in spite of the extensive surveillance. Afterwards, while the Lund Report was being prepared, parts of the political establishment - including former prime minister Kåre Willoch - made a strong defence of the surveillance of AKP on the basis of some thoughts about § 104 in the Constitution (.."he who forms, participates in or supports organisations that have as their goal through sabotage, the use of power or other illegal means to disrupt the order of society"). But without demanding that legal action be taken against AKP. The aim of the reasoning was to excuse those that had the political responsibility for the intelligence activities, among others Willoch himself, and to put a smoke screen over the establishment of a new surveillance regime.
Many politicians were appalled when the Lund Report was presented on May 8, 1996. They promised to clean up. The truth was now going to be forced into the light. But the eagerness to clean up soon abated. The vice president of the Parliament at that time, Edvard Grimstad (Centre Party) asserted during the parliamentary debate on the right to insight, on June 17, 1997, that "there has never been any risk in putting forward the truth". Since then some of Grimstad's fellow party members have acquired a seat in the government and have found out that Edvard Grimstad was totally wrong. They consider the risk to be too large for the truth that is lying hidden in the archives of the Norwegian Police Security Service, to be put forward.
On October 30, 1998 the government put of the "centre parties" put forward the bill "Concerning a provisional law on limited insight into the archives and registries of the Norwegian Police Security Service " ("The insight act"). Reading superficially the first article of the law, with the title "The right to insight and compensation", it looks promising: "A Norwegian citizen or person belonging in Norway has the right to have insight into information concerning whether that person is registered in the archives and registries of the Norwegian Police Security Service, if nothing else should follow by this act."
The first catch is that this only goes for persons that have been under surveillance up until November 25, 1977. For surveillance after this time it must be established that the surveillance was illegal in order to attain the right to insight. We'll let the meaningless division between "legal" and "illegal" surveillance lie here. Rather, let us look at § 2 titled "Exceptions to the right to have insight":
"When insight into a document, or an information in a document, can damage relations with a foreign state, or when security interests or personal security interests dictate exception from the right to insight, such insight shall not be given. Insight shall always be denied if such insight will give knowledge of sources, names of officers in the security police, names of judges in control-cases, can damage relations with co-operating services or in any other way give knowledge about the legal methods of the security police, in such a way that can be of hindrance to the security service's tasks. (...)"
The essence of this paragraph is that it is the Norwegian Police Security Service that at any time decides what is to be withheld from insight. As long as the authority to intern from 1950 exists, the planning of such internment will be a part of the legal methods of the Norwegian Police Security Service.
This is about that the post war state apparatus is built on a surveillance- and informer-system, where the ruling class is elevated above the Constitution and any other law when it chooses methods to be used against the opposition. The struggle for a true right to insight is a struggle to uncover, bit by bit, the dictatorial apparatus of power behind the facade of the post war parliamentary democracy. We know that this apparatus of power exists, but we don't know how extensive it is. The continued struggle for insight will give still more knowledge about how the state of the bourgeoisie rules Norway. But simultaneously while we are waging this struggle, we know that the ruling class is strengthening its methods for holding onto power:
Anyhow, the struggle in connection with demanding the erection of the Lund Commission, to make public its material and the difficult struggle for changing surveillance has meant a lot. The Lund Commission is a large source of knowledge about the class state of the bourgeoisie. It reveals in an almost unbelievable way how important the alliance between capital and the social democratic movement has been for its ability to crush popular movements and revolutionary organisations in order to secure stable conditions for accumulation.
We stand today miles from the situation in East Germany where archives were opened and those guilty were taken to trial. But the campaign we will be starting to try out the law on the right to insight will mean continuing to put the searchlight on unpleasant sides of the Norwegian class dictatorship, sides that the ruling class rather would have hidden. In this way we can continue using the fruit of the Lund Commission to educate people on what kind of society we really live in. We remove whatever illusions the masses and ourselves have. And at the same time we put out some obstacles in the road of the ruling class.