The Israeli police, using the NSO group’s Pegasus spyware, conducted warrantless phone surveillance of Israeli citizens, including politicians and activists, the Israeli newspaper Calcalist reported on Tuesday, 18 January.
Among those described as having been targets in the report were mayors, leaders of political protests against the former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former government employees.
As per the newspaper’s investigation, the hacking wasn’t done under court supervision, and neither was a search or bugging warrant requested by the police to conduct the surveillance. Further, there is no information on how the data collected was monitored or used.
While the Israeli police has claimed that they employ legally-approved cyber-surveillance tools to fight crime, they have neither denied or confirmed using the spyware.
The NSO Group has been under global scrutiny ever since a consortium of international media outlets, revealed that a leaked list of around 50,000 phone numbers showed that governments around the globe used Pegasus to spy on people or mark them as potential targets.
This includes India, where Pegasus is believed to have been used to snoop on at least 300 Indian phone numbers, including those of over 40 senior journalists, opposition leaders, government officials and rights activists.
'Phone Calls & Messages Intercepted Without Court Orders'
Israeli police acquired NSO's Pegasus spyware in December 2013, according to the report.
It added that the police began to use it after December 2015 “without court orders, intercepting calls and messages on the cellphones of Israelis who were not suspected of crimes.”
Meanwhile, journalist Tomer Ganon, who reported the story, said in a tweet, "Blatant and illegal intrusion of the privacy of citizens without court orders. This is not how a democracy works."
The report further claimed that the police hacked leaders of the Black Flag movement in 2020, who had been organising street protests demanding Netanyahu’s resignation.
Reportedly, police also used it to spy on two mayors suspected of corruption.
Israel’s public security minister, Omer Barlev, said in a statement, “no practice of secretive wiretapping, or intrusion into devices, by the Israeli police without the approval of a judge,” The Guardian reported.
He was further quoted as saying, “At the same time, I intend to ensure that no corners are cut on the subject of NSO and that everything will be checked thoroughly and unequivocally by a judge."
(With inputs from Calcalist and The Guardian.)
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