The Pegasus Scandal

Ruchika Rawan|THE DEN

A fierce debate has raged ever since a group of 17 media houses, including Indian news organisation ‘The Wire’, broke the story of snooping of eminent journalists, politicians, academicians, businessman, activist and students, by planting the Israeli-made pegasus spyware on their phones.

Pegasus-An Israeli software, which can steal information from a cell phone without the owner’s knowledge developed by NSO Group Technologies who licences it only to governments.

Who could be behind it and why?

The controversy surrounds the alleged usage of pegasus spyware by the Indian government to snoop on prominent personalities. However, the Indian government has strongly denied in Parliament any role in the alleged snooping.

Opposition demands independent probe into this issue and so does everyone as no matter how startling the allegations may sound, they cannot be dismissed disdainfully.

There are nine petitions that have been filed so far in this case, the matter was last heard in Supreme Court on August 10 where the apex court decided to adjourn the hearing to August 16 after the Solicitor General sought time to get instructions.

Hitherto 161 names have been revealed as the potential targets for surveillance.

Including,

Rahul Gandhi, Prashant Kishor, Ashwini Vaishnav, Abhisekh Banerjee, Ashok Lavasa, Alok Verma, Anil Ambani, Rakesh Asthana,Former SC judge Arun Mishra.

The phone number on the leaked database contain 14 world leaders

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador,President of Mexico

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador,President of Mexico, Emmanuel Macron: The President of France, Imran Khan, PM of Pakistan,Mostafa Madbouly, PMof Egypt, Saad-Eddine El Othmani PM of Morocco, Barham Salih: The president of Iraq, Cyril Ramaphosa: The president of South Africa, Mohammed VI: Morocco’s king,Saad Hariri: Former prime minister of Lebanon, Ruhakana Rugunda: Former prime minister of Uganda. Noureddine Bedoui: Former prime minister of Algeria, Charles Michel: Former prime minister of Belgium, Panah Huseynov: Former prime minister of Azerbaijan, Felipe Calderon: Former Mexican president.

Parliament’s Monsoon Session Disruption

The din has been deafening the hallowed chambers of parliament, since monsoon session has begun as the pegasus scandal came into light just a day before this session.

The Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha witnessed repeated adjournments amid opposition protest over discussion on the Pegasus surveillance issue .

This controversy has put a question mark about safety and privacy of mobile users as no one had ever imagined that cyber snooping would be just a single tap away.

With the government using spyware softwares, it makes you ponder to the diminishing of democracy to what level and how individual freedom and privacy are flickering away.