Allegations of abuse of the Pegasus spyware in Poland resurfaced in March, according to a report by TVP World’s Irina Tsukerman, as cited by the niezalezna.pl news website.
Allegations of spyware abuse in Poland
Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza in March reported that the country's Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) hacked the phone of Jacek Karnowski, mayor of the coastal city of Sopot, 10 to 20 times between 2018 and 2019.
The timeline coincides with Karnowski’s activity as a mastermind behind the opposition's campaign for the Senate, the upper house of parliament, as part of Poland’s general elections, Gazeta Wyborcza said.
According to TVP World's Tsukerman, "the return of the allegations marks a new election season in Poland, but this is no local issue. Poland was not the only country to experience this pattern.”
Tsukerman added: “Spain, France, Greece, and Hungary have faced similar allegations. The EU Parliament established the PEGA committee to investigate these and other claims.”
When the PEGA panel held a three-day session in Warsaw in September last year, it asked to see only representatives of Poland’s opposition parties and people who support them, niezalezna.pl said.
‘Another platform to attack Poland’
Dominik Tarczyński, a member of the European Parliament with Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, said at the time that “most members of the PEGA committee are by no means seeking to uncover real abuses of Pegasus spyware, but simply treat the panel as yet another platform to attack Poland.”
'Long-term Russian intelligence operation'?
TVP World’s Tsukerman wrote: “Now evidence emerges that the global Pegasus Project investigation is not what it claims to be. Indeed, this has all the markings of a long-term Russian intelligence operation.”
The Pegasus Project is an international investigation into Israel’s NSO Group, which sells the Pegasus hacking spyware used by governments around the world, focusing on possible abuses of Pegasus for political ends, niezalezna.pl reported.
The Pegasus Project is being carried out by major newspapers including Germany’s Die Zeit, America’s The Washington Post, Britain’s The Guardian and Israel’s Haaretz, according to the Polish website.
TVP World’s Tsukerman said that, since 2016, allegations of systematic abuse of Pegasus have been directed at 45 countries, including Azerbaijan, Bahrain, India, Israel, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, El Salvador and the United Arab Emirates.
Meanwhile, when it comes to Poland, “the sheer duration of the resurfacing reports indicate a long-term, well-funded, and sustained agenda.”
TVP World said: “While the domestic impact may have been minimal thus far, on the international stage, the allegations of the abuse of software feed the growing narrative, backed by Russia’s sympathizers, which accuses Warsaw of authoritarianism, antidemocratic political moves and terror, and crackdown on freedom of the press and other political freedoms.”
'All clues point in the direction of Russian intelligence’s involvement'
According to TVP World’s Tsukerman, Ron Deibert, the founder of CitizenLab, a Canada-based interdisciplinary laboratory that also investigates abuses of Pegasus spyware, was “one of a select group of people” to first receive the so-called Snowden files – highly classified documents leaked by Edward Snowden from America’s National Security Agency in 2013, to show the level of government surveillance of society.
The United States charged Snowden with espionage and theft of government property, after which he left for Hong Kong and then Russia, and last year received Russian citizenship and swore an oath of allegiance, niezalezna.pl reported.
TVP World’s Tsukerman wrote: “All clues point in the direction of Russian intelligence’s involvement in these campaigns as a matter of policy.”
‘Attack on Poland is intensifying over time’
She added: “The attack on Poland is intensifying over time, indicating increased state interest and control. Whereas a few years ago, Poland was a relatively minor target in the Pegasus campaign, since Russia reentered Ukraine in 2022, the anti-Polish information warfare became much more pronounced - and aimed at creating tensions in the EU, as well as weakening US support by playing on the fake human rights/democracy concerns.”
According to TVP World’s Tsukerman, Russian intelligence may be cooperating with state officials in coordinating attacks on Poland.
She added that “since Russia cannot get hold of” Pegasus due to a ban issued by Israel, it seeks to prevent “NATO members and their allies” from gaining access to the spyware, “in hopes of avoiding being targeted by one of the most sophisticated tools in the Western arsenal.”
TVP World’s Tsukerman further stated that although CitizenLab’s Deibert “claims to support the global ban of all commercial spyware, Citizen Lab and its partners have overwhelmingly focused on Pegasus and other Israeli software, not Russian, Chinese, or others.”
“Citizen Lab in this scenario plays the role of a useful mercenary,” Tsukerman concluded in a report published on the broadcaster’s website on Tuesday.
(pm/gs)
Source: niezalezna.pl, TVP World
