Pegasus Spyware: This Act of Snooping Essentially Conveys That The Journalism And Political Dissent Are Now Equated With” Terror” Editors Guild Demands Supreme Court Monitored Probe
(Judicial Quest News Network)
The Editors Guild of India has expressed deep shock at the Pegasus project expose that has revealed suspected attempts to snoop on thousands of Journalists, activists, academics, NGO employees and lawyers, among others, by multiple governments.
“The Guild demands an urgent and independent inquiry into these snooping charges, under the aegis of the Supreme Court of India”, a press statement issued by it said,
It further demanded that the inquiry committee should include people of impeccable credibility from different walk of life-including journalists and civil-society-so that it can independently investigate the facts around and intent of snooping using the services of Pegasus.
Israel’s NSO is at the heart of the alleged state surveillance of thousands of people in many countries including India.
It can uniquely find a route into a targets’ device that is unknown to the developer of the device and its software, and without requiring target to take any action such as click.
The statement further said that while some of the instances of surveillance might have been target against those who may be seen as credible national security threat, what is disturbing is a large of such targets were journalists and social activists. This is a brazen unconstitutional attack on freedom of speech and press. How can a constitutional democracy survive if governments do not make an effort to protect freedom of speech and allows surveillance with such impunity?
This is a moment that demands deep introspection and inquiry into the kind of society heading towards, and how far we may have veered away from the democratic enshrined in our constitution.
The estimated 300 Indian numbers on the list included those of multiple journalists and activist, besides Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, newly-appointed Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, political strategist Prashanth Kishore, and West Bengal CM Mamta Banerjee’s MP nephew Abhishek Banerjee.
