Major espionage scandal against pro-independence politicians with the Israeli company’s Pegasus program NSO Group focused on the control of intelligence services to avoid irregular practices. Western democracies have mechanisms that control espionage work, but in most cases this control does not prevent it. abuses and irregularities. They control the activities of their secret services in other countries as follows:
A spy program of its own
France is practically a European exception for cell phone spying. Unlike other European Union countries such as Germany, Spain or Hungary, intelligence services did not acquire the Pegasus program, which is known for allowing a spy to spy. smart phone without requiring a click from the person under surveillance. Israeli company NSO Group has teamed up to sell this product to various bodies of the French Administration, including the General Directorate of Homeland Security (DGSI, secret services). But they eventually rejected the purchase due to questionable links between the NSO Group and the Hebrew State, the newspaper reported late last year. Le Monde.
He preferred to develop the French secret services. your own tools spying on mobile phones, although much less powerful than the famous Israeli program. There have been no cases of surveillance by the secret services of an opposition representative in recent years, but there have been some notorious incidents. For example, François Ruffindeputy of France Insumisa (partners of Podemos in France), which is the subject of a lawsuit follow after being asked by former secret service director Bernard Escuarcini Bernard ArnaultOwner of the Louis Vuitton group and the richest man in France. ENRIC BONET
Citizen’s right to ask
This Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution It is the main agency responsible for monitoring political movements or foreign agents that pose a potential or actual threat to Germany’s internal stability. The intelligence service observes the far right, for example, radical islam or to the considered groups extreme left.
This organ is formally subject to various mechanisms. external control. The first is the Ministry of the Interior, which has a delegate tasked with checking whether the secret services respect the government. data protection laws and freedom of information. The financial situation of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is also under the control of the Federal Court of Auditors.
The second control mechanism is Bundestag (federal parliament), a parliamentary committee The deputies can ask questions about the internal functioning. This parliamentary commission also controls the BND (Federal Intelligence Service) and the German Army’s domestic intelligence services. For this, the commission has the right to access the files, offices of different secret services and to question their officials. Through this parliamentary mechanism, for example, some sections of the far-right party AfD and also post-communist Die Linke They are being watched by secret services.
Finally, citizens German intelligence services also have the right to ask about information they collect on certain topics or about themselves. ANDREU STRIP
Executive, judicial and parliamentary oversight
In United Kingdom intelligence services are subject to three types of control: executive, judiciary and parliamentary. In execution, the general directorate of security services is responsible for the legality and effectiveness of its activities before the prime minister and the interior minister.
judicial control, a independent court It was founded by three judges who had nothing to do with the government of the day. Judges have access to reports from security services, and security services are legally obliged to deliver them to them.
Parliamentary oversight Intelligence and Security Committee. The mandate of this committee is limited to matters pertaining to the finances and administration of MI5 (homeland security), MI6 (external security) and GCHQ (British Government Communications Centre), it has no jurisdiction over military intelligence matters or the legality of their actions. .
British secret services were involved in several incidents. scandals. They were accused of spying in January 2015. journalists’ emails intercepted emails of journalists from major international media GCHQ, BBC, NBC television network and newspapers The Sun, Le Monde, The New York Times, The Washington Post Y Guardian. Secret documents uncovered by the Americans Edward Snowden Some of the British intelligence services journalists as potential security threat“. BEGOÑA Maple
From Watergate to 9/11
The debate has never been further from powerful intelligence services in the United States. scandal water gate not just the presidency Richard Nixon: opened the floodgates of the sewer and the Church commission abuses FBI programs such as COINTELPROThey have spied on everything from the KKK to the Communist Party or the Black Panthers and the National Security Agency (NSA) like Operation Shamrock and the Minaret project targeting espionage, among others. Martin Luther King.
After this disaster, Congress approved the creation of committees. continuous inspection Spying in both rooms. The Foreign Service Intelligence Act (FISA) was also ratified. Jimmy Carter It was signed in 1978 and also established a special court that reviews and decides on espionage requests from law enforcement and agencies such as the FBI and NSA. FISA has been amended several times.
The main expansion of the government’s espionage capabilities, September 11 attacks and confirmation of discussion Patriot ActThis gave the green light to American espionage. Despite judicial and legislative oversight, disclosures Edward Snowden They proved the excesses and abuses of the NSA in 2013.
There is now a time when government oversight is fueled by oversight by big tech companies, as organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have warned.
About the controversial program pegasusin January New York Times It turned out that the FBI had been testing and buying for years, plus there was another NSO program called NSO. ghostfor use in national surveillance, although the FBI last year assured that it refused to use the vehicles.
The CIA and NSA have their own surveillance technologies, but accordingly TimesOther government agencies, including the Army and the Department of Justice, have bought it”spywarefrom private companies. İDOYA NOAIN
inviolable pillar of the state
As a country that cares about security since the day it was founded, intelligence agencies have always been one of the inviolable pillars of the state. Israel. actions of celebrities mossad, the national intelligence agency, within and outside its borders. no no law those who define their mandate, mission or budget and are accountable only to the prime minister. The public was not bothered by the imprecise power of the intelligence services in Israel. Until Pegasus arrives.
Your company creators NSO They promised software It is designed not to work on Israeli phones. However, according to research by calcalistarrival of its members at the police leadership Shin BetAccustomed to controlling the lives of Palestinians under the hypervigilant system of the occupation, Israel has made this tool part of the state’s internal security system to expand its cyber diplomacy. Scandal broke out last February.
Promises of a government investigation were soon extinguished. Justice Minister, Gideon SaarHe called the accusations “false”. “There is no need to take the dramatic step of establishing a state commission of inquiry,” he added. Calcalist claimed that this would be tainted by conflicts of interest. For now, the espionage debate is settled in Israel. Many condemn the lack of legislation in regulating cyber surveillance and demand that cyber surveillance be updated. Privacy Protection Act to reach those law enforcement and security agencies. ANDREA LÓPEZ-TOMÀS
Source: Informacion
