Journalists from The Pioneer, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, India Today, Tribune, victims of snooping
The telephones of Union Ministers, Opposition leaders, politicians, journalists and Supreme Court judges were reportedly hacked as they were targeted by the Pegasus spyware between 2018 and 2019, according to an expose by a global consortium of media publications.
According to media reports, which The Pioneer cannot verify independently, among those whose phones were under surveillance, were at least 40 journalists, three senior Union Ministers and a well-known Supreme Court judge. The first report only carries names of journalists allegedly targeted in India.
According to a report in The Wire, the leaked database was accessed by the Paris-based media non-profit ‘Forbidden Stories’ and Amnesty International and shared with The Wire, Le Monde, The Guardian, Washington Post, Die Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung and 10 other Mexican, Arab and European news organisations, as part of a collaborative investigation called the ‘Pegasus Project’.
Reports said that those who came under attack of the Spyware also include top officers of the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax Department. Pegasus is a software produced by the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group
The Wire's analysis of the data shows that most of the people were targeted between 2018 and 2019, in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha general elections.
According to a report in the ‘Forbidden Stories’ published late on Sunday evening, ‘Forbidden Stories’ and Amnesty International had access to a leak of more than 50,000 records of phone numbers that NSO clients selected for surveillance.
According to an analysis of these records by ‘Forbidden Stories’ and its partners, the phones of at least 180 journalists were selected in 20 countries by at least 10 NSO clients. These Government clients range from autocratic nations like Bahrain, Morocco and Saudi Arabia to democratic ones like India and Mexico and span the entire world, from Hungary and Azerbaijan in Europe to Togo and Rwanda in Africa.
As the ‘Pegasus Project’ will show, many of them have not been afraid to select journalists, human rights defenders, political opponents, business people and even heads of State as targets of this invasive technology.
“While previous reporting showed four journalists among the 121 Pegasus targets revealed in India in 2019, the records accessed by ‘Forbidden Stories’ show that this surveillance may have been much more extensive. More than 2,000 Indian and Pakistani numbers were selected as targets between 2017 and 2019, among them Indian journalists from nearly every major media outlet, including The Hindu, the Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, India Today, Tribune, and The Pioneer. Local journalists were also selected as targets, including Jaspal Singh Heran, the editor-in-chief of a Punjab-based outlet that publishes only in Punjabi, the report in the ‘Forbidden Story’ said.
“The leaked phone numbers, which ‘Forbidden Stories’ and its partners analysed over months, reveal for the first time the staggering scale of surveillance of journalists and human rights defenders — despite the NSO Group’s repeated claims that its tools are exclusively used for targeting serious criminals and terrorists — and confirm the fears of Press advocates about the scope of spyware being used against journalists,” the FS report said.
“The numbers vividly show the abuse is widespread, placing journalists’ lives, those of their families and associates in danger, undermining freedom of the Press and shutting down critical media,” said Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International. “It is about controlling public narrative, resisting scrutiny, suppressing any dissenting voice,” the report added.
Pegasus sends a malware link to the target user and once the user clicks on it, the code that allows the surveillance is installed on the person’s phone. The attacker then has complete access to the target user’s phone.
Most of the numbers identified in the list were geographically concentrated in 10 country clusters: India, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, The Wire reported.
According to the reports, the tapping happened during 2018-2019 period. Earlier a similar tapping by NSO using Pegasus software by infiltrating into WhatsApp was detected in 2017. That time the Israel firm deposed in a US Court that they give data for Governments only.
The phone tapping of around five senior Ministers in the Modi Cabinet and very senior leaders of the RSS and more than four Supreme Court Judges is expected to be put the Government in the dock during the Parliament Session starting on Monday. Many Opposition leaders’ phones were also in the list of tapped by the Israel firm.
As a teaser to this expose, the Washington Post reported that the Israeli firm’s 2018-2019 tapping list was unearthed by Microsoft’s research team in association with Citizen Lab. It is widely believed that a whistle-blower from the Israeli company has leaked the information to Microsoft. Microsoft also published a blog indicating the rampant business of spying by the NSO Group and sale to many Governments.
