Hearing on the implications of the Pegasus spyware at Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Parliamentary assembly Council of Europe https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=27455&LangID=E

Statement by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet 14 September 2021

widespread use of the spyware commercialized by the NSO group, affecting thousands of people in 45 countries across four continents. The targeting of human rights defenders, journalists and politicians is just another example of how tools allegedly meant to address security risks can end up being weaponized against people with dissenting opinions.

Abuses facilitated by the surveillance industry have grown so common that only days before the Pegasus revelations, another report described opaque deals involving the marketing of a different spyware, Candiru. That spyware was said to have similarly targeted at least 100 human rights defenders and journalists in at least 10 countries.

Governments and companies have developed numerous surveillance tools, citing real security threats and noting the urgent need to fight criminal activity online and offline. And this surveillance industry has thrived in the absence of minimal levels of regulation and control at both national and global levels. A surveillance technology market has dangerously flourished in the shadows, far from justice oversight and public scrutiny –both in authoritarian countries and in democracies. The prevailing opacity and lack of regulation created the perfect conditions for broad security claims to be translated into new measures of repression.

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Seventeen journalists from seven countries who were listed as potential or actual victims of Pegasus spyware have filed complaints with prosecutors in Paris, against NSO Group and all other persons the investigation will identify.

RSF has also formally referred the cases of these 17 journalists to four UN special rapporteurs – the rapporteurs on freedom of opinion and expression, the right to privacy, human rights defenders, and protecting human rights while countering terrorism – asking them to seek explanations from those governments suspected of using Pegasus to spy on these journalists.

The Indian Journalists who have put their names to this complaint are:

• Swati Chaturvedi

• Sushant Singh

• Siddharth Varadarajan

• MK Venu

• Shubhranshu Choudhary

he Forbidden Stories group, with the technical support of Amnesty International’s Security Lab, uncovered an ocean of information about Pegasus that made clear its nefarious use and is documented on this website https://www.occrp.org/en/the-pegasus-project /.)

https://forbiddenstories.org/about-the-pegasus-project/ )

Page under construction:

Pegasus & Its Implications to the Security of Indian Society https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12FxiiC0ZQE

Shre Iyer's presentation https://youtube.com/12FxiiC0ZQE?start=1111&end=2044

https://www.dailypioneer.com/2021/page1/pegasus-snooping-non-issue--govt.html

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said in the House that the Pegasus controversy was a “non-issue” and that the Government was ready for discussions on people-related issues. He said IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has already given a detailed statement on the issue in both the Houses.

Shukla Sen: It's now clear as daylight that the regime is hellbent on stonewalling any
discussion on the Pegasus snooping issue in the Parliament.

The BJP members had boycotted the meeting of the IT standing committee meet
too to stall any discussion on the issue there and the government officials
scheduled to attend declined to at the last moment.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pegasus-row-cji-led-bench-to-hear-petition-by-n-ram-sashi-kumar-on-august-5/article35659509.ece  A Supreme Court Bench led by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana will on August 5 hear a petition filed by senior journalists N. Ram and Sashi Kumar for an independent probe headed by a former or sitting top court judge into the mass surveillance of over 142 potential “targets”, including journalists, lawyers, ministers, Opposition politicians, constitutional functionaries and civil society activists, using military-grade Israeli spyware Pegasus.

https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/law-and-order/on-pegasus-snoopgate-supreme-court-to-hear-plea-seeking-court-monitored-probe-on-august-5.html   CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas filed a writ petition moving the apex court for a court-monitored investigation executed by an SIT into the alleged Pegasus snooping issue.  "It is only an evasive statement of the Government. The Government has unequivocally accepted the statement of the company, NSO, which owns the alleged spyware technology and blindly accepted their version without investigation." The company in question, NSO, however, has rubbished the entire report.

https://m.timesofindia.com/india/congress-james-bond-of-spying-when-in-govt-pegasus-a-fabricated-issue-naqvi/amp_articleshow/84941587.cms

Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Sunday said the party was "James Bond of spying" when in power and it now wants to waste Parliament's time over "fake and fabricated" issues.

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Surveillance

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Hearing on the implications of the Pegasus spyware at Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights