On Friday, Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the Law and Justice party testified before a committee investigating alleged abuses of the Pegasus software in spying on high-ranking officials and opposition leaders. Following the recess, Kaczyński testified that, to his knowledge, the software was used to spy on common criminals to provide evidence in subsequent court cases. The issue raised of whether it would have been possible for the creators of the software to access the data they collected, was also addressed.
In a session of questions asked by committee deputy chair Pawel Śliz (Poland 2050-Third Way, PL2050-TD), a dispute between the two politicians arose.
The PiS leader testified before the committee that, to his knowledge, surveillance systems were available to “certainly Israel, certainly Germany” and “36 countries, and at one point even 100.” Śliz asked if he was referring to the Pegagus system. Referring to “ex post knowledge,” Kaczyński said that this software is at the disposal of “all European Union countries.”
“Please do not mislead the public,” Śliz addressed Kaczyński. He referred to a report by Amnesty International, which listed Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, India, Hungary, and Poland among the countries using Pegasus.
One of the question threads was what the Law and Justice chairman knew about the use of the Pegasus system by other countries, and what information he had received from the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration in the PiS government, Mariusz Kamiński, about the purchase of the surveillance program.
The new coalition government is accusing PiS, that when it was in power, it had purchased spyware from the Israeli firm NSO to spy on people linked with the then opposition, citing reports from Citizen Lab, a specialized unit at the University of Toronto, phone maker Apple, and Amnesty International.
Pegasus can be used to gain access to information stored on smartphones and eavesdrop on conversations.
The PiS leader testified before the committee that, to his knowledge, surveillance systems were available to “certainly Israel, certainly Germany” and “36 countries, and at one point even 100.” Śliz asked if he was referring to the Pegagus system. Referring to “ex post knowledge,” Kaczyński said that this software is at the disposal of “all European Union countries.”
“Please do not mislead the public,” Śliz addressed Kaczyński. He referred to a report by Amnesty International, which listed Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, India, Hungary, and Poland among the countries using Pegasus.
One of the question threads was what the Law and Justice chairman knew about the use of the Pegasus system by other countries, and what information he had received from the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration in the PiS government, Mariusz Kamiński, about the purchase of the surveillance program.
The new coalition government is accusing PiS, that when it was in power, it had purchased spyware from the Israeli firm NSO to spy on people linked with the then opposition, citing reports from Citizen Lab, a specialized unit at the University of Toronto, phone maker Apple, and Amnesty International.
Pegasus can be used to gain access to information stored on smartphones and eavesdrop on conversations.
In Kaczyński’s opinion, the use of Pegasus was completely legal and there was no misconduct in this regard.
“The vast, crushing majority, probably 99 percent of these actions simply involved ordinary criminals, and there may have been a case where it involved people holding some public function, but these people are criminals too,” Kaczyński said.
Kaczyński vehemently denied any knowledge of Pegasus software being used to “create incriminating material.”
He was also asked, among other things, whether he was aware that the Pegasus system exceeds the legal norms of operational control and downloads information retroactively. The chairman of PiS said he knew nothing about this. In his opinion, “we are dealing with ‘features’ here.”
“This is an attempt to make the public believe that something was going on that did not happen,” he added.
Kaczyński was also asked about the issue of possible access to data collected through Pegasus by foreign countries, primarily Israel, where the software was created.
“There was no such risk considered and I had no such information in the slightest. I treated the device as a device serving the Polish state, not foreign states,” Kaczyński replied.
As Kaczyński said, addressing the committee, there is an atmosphere being created that “I and other people were hugely focused on the Pegasus case.”
“This was a matter, at least from my point of view, of tertiary if not quintuple importance, and I was not particularly interested in it at all. Perhaps other people interviewed here will have more knowledge on the matter,” Kaczyński stressed.
“Secondly, as far as intelligence threats to Poland are concerned, of course, they exist in relations with any country, because we don’t want to give any secret information to any country. This is understandable. But in this gradation of countries with which we are fighting a battle for the security of our information, Israel is not high on the list,” the Law and Justice chairman said.
Kaczyński, one of the first key figures from the previous government to testify in front of the committee, was asked whether the security services wiretapped any top politicians when he was a deputy minister in charge of national security, in which capacity he had served from October 2020, until June 2022.
“The vast, crushing majority, probably 99 percent of these actions simply involved ordinary criminals, and there may have been a case where it involved people holding some public function, but these people are criminals too,” Kaczyński said.
Kaczyński vehemently denied any knowledge of Pegasus software being used to “create incriminating material.”
He was also asked, among other things, whether he was aware that the Pegasus system exceeds the legal norms of operational control and downloads information retroactively. The chairman of PiS said he knew nothing about this. In his opinion, “we are dealing with ‘features’ here.”
“This is an attempt to make the public believe that something was going on that did not happen,” he added.
Kaczyński was also asked about the issue of possible access to data collected through Pegasus by foreign countries, primarily Israel, where the software was created.
“There was no such risk considered and I had no such information in the slightest. I treated the device as a device serving the Polish state, not foreign states,” Kaczyński replied.
As Kaczyński said, addressing the committee, there is an atmosphere being created that “I and other people were hugely focused on the Pegasus case.”
“This was a matter, at least from my point of view, of tertiary if not quintuple importance, and I was not particularly interested in it at all. Perhaps other people interviewed here will have more knowledge on the matter,” Kaczyński stressed.
“Secondly, as far as intelligence threats to Poland are concerned, of course, they exist in relations with any country, because we don’t want to give any secret information to any country. This is understandable. But in this gradation of countries with which we are fighting a battle for the security of our information, Israel is not high on the list,” the Law and Justice chairman said.
Kaczyński, one of the first key figures from the previous government to testify in front of the committee, was asked whether the security services wiretapped any top politicians when he was a deputy minister in charge of national security, in which capacity he had served from October 2020, until June 2022.
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