Polish government plays down Pegasus spy software scandal

Poland’s government has dismissed as “a storm in a teacup” claims that it used the controversial Pegasus software to spy on political opponents.

Minister for justice Zbigniew Ziobro was responding to a claim in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily newspaper that the a state anti-corruption office bought the software four years ago illegally, using 25 million Polish zloty (€5.5 million) from a state fund for victims of crimes.

Last month saw the first reports that opposition politicians’ phones had been hacked, with some comparing the affair to the Watergate scandal that toppled US president Richard Nixon.

On Wednesday Mr Ziobro told a press conference it “would be a disgrace” if Poland did not have and use “technological tools that make it possible to obtain legal wiretapping”.

Peter Bogdanovich, Last Picture Show director, dies at 82

---

Russian troops land in Kazakhstan as ‘terrorists’ blamed for protest violence

---

India’s rising Omicron wave brings a grim sense of deja vu

---

Storming of the US Capitol: What we know now about January 6th

---

“It is good that the Polish state is not helpless, it is good that criminals cannot jump for joy,” he said.

Michal Wójcik, a senior member of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, said “nothing was hidden” from MPs in the parliamentary public finance committee.

“If you go back to transcripts from four years ago . . . it was discussed,” he said. “The financing was transparent, clear to everyone.”

Financial plan

Gazeta Wyborcza says MPs on the committee who voted to change the financial plan of the justice fund in 2017 were neither aware that this would allow the software purchase nor aware of its purpose.

Gazeta Wyborcza says deputy justice minister Michal Wos tabled the amendment to change the status of the justice fund to allow the software purchase.

Last month, confronted with the first Pegasus allegations, Mr Wos said: “I do not know which system you are asking about, I do not know what system this is.”

Opposition politician Krzysztof Brejza, an MP with the Civic Platform (PO), said his smartphone was hacked 33 times between April and October 2019. The 38-year-old has linked the hacks to leaks of emails to state broadcaster TVP, seen as a government propaganda outlet, ahead of the general election. He says the leaked emails were manipulated to cast him and his party in a bad light.

Also allegedly targeted were the phones of two further prominent government critics: opposition lawyer Roman Giertych, a former interior minister, and prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek. Though Ms Wrzosek found out her device had been compromised from smartphone-maker Apple, she says her criminal complaint was dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

Mr Brejza said he learned he had been hacked from a media report, but that the public prosecutor’s office had shown little interest in the affair.

Investigations

On Wednesday Mr Ziobro, who also heads the public prosecutor’s office, was asked why there were no active investigations into the Pegasus complaints. Mr Ziobro said Poland’s intelligence services “operate in accordance with law and act in regard to everyone, regardless of their function or profession”.

Last year an international media consortium revealed how Pegasus, created by the Israeli company NSO, was used by governments across the world to spy on activists, journalists and politicians – including in Hungary, France and Spain.

Once smuggled onto phones and activated, the software can record conversations, register location data and secretly activate cameras.

Since those revelations, Pegasus maker NSO has come under financial and political pressure, has been blacklisted by the US Department of Commerce and is reportedly planning to sell the software.

Israel has reportedly reduced the number of states licensed to use Pegasus from more than 100 to 37, dropping Hungary and Poland from the list.