SPYWARE ROW: MODI FACES OPPOSITION HEAT
BJP ACCUSED OF TAPPING PHONES OF RAHUL GANDHI, JOURNALISTS AND ACTIVISTS
INDIAN opposition parties disrupted parliament on Tuesday (20), demanding an investigation into reports that the government used Israeli-made Pegasus spyware to snoop on scores of journalists, activists and politicians, including the main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi.
Shouting out slogans against prime minister Narendra Modi’s government, the opposition members said they wanted an independent probe into the complaints of spying and the resignation of home minister Amit Shah.
An investigation published last Sunday (18) by 17 media organisations, led by the Paris-based non-profit journalism group Forbidden Stories, said spyware made and licensed by the Israeli company NSO had been used in attempted and successful hacks of 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, government officials and human rights activists.
Indian news portal The Wire reported that smartphones of politicians including Gandhi, a senior leader of the opposition Congress party, and two other lawmakers were among 300 verified Indian numbers listed as potential targets for surveillance during 20172019 ahead of national elections.
More than 1,000 phone numbers in India were among tens of thousands worldwide selected as possibly of interest to clients of NSO Group, maker of the Pegasus spyware, according to a group of media outlets.
They include a woman who made sexual harassment allegations against India’s former chief justice, as well as Tibetan Buddhist clerics, Pakistani diplomats and Chinese journalists, the reports said.
At least two employees of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based in India, including a US citizen, were also identified, along with the director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Indian operations, the outlets said.
Analysis of the Indian phone numbers strongly indicate intelligence agencies within the Indian government were behind the selection, the Guardian reported.
The Indian government reiterated in a statement to the Washington Post that “allegations regarding government surveillance on specific people has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever”.
NSO has said its product was intended only for use by vetted government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism and crime.
Opposition leaders said the Modi administration was spying on journalists, activists and politicians who were opposed to its policies. “It is an attack on the democratic foundations of our country,” Congress said in a statement.
It said the government had illegally accessed the conversation of many people by hacking cell phones with the Pegasus spyware.
Ashwini Vaishnaw, minister for Electronics and Information Technology, told lawmakers on Monday there was no substance to the reports of spying.
India had a well-established procedure in which lawful interception of electronic communication was carried out by federal and state agencies for the purpose of national security, particularly in the case of a public emergency or in the interest of public safety, he said. Indian rules ensured that “unauthorised surveillance does not occur,” he said.
News reports said the phone of Vaishnaw himself was also hacked, but it was not clear why.
The government has declined to reply to questions whether India or any of its state agencies had purchased Pegasus spyware for surveillance. Home minister Amit Shah said the reports aimed to “humiliate India at the world stage, peddle the same old narratives about our nation and derail India’s development trajectory.”
Gandhi told the Guardian that if the allegations were correct, it was “an attack on the democratic foundations of our country”.
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, an independent journalist, said that the Amnesty International Digital Lab informed him that his phone was “compromised” in March, April and May of 2018.
“It also puts my sources at risk. People who are speaking to you on condition of anonymity, if they get compromised, that’s terrible,” he said. “It’s bad for democracy, it’s bad for journalism. It is terrible.”