Debate: Investigation of the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware - Investigation of the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware
Date: WEDNESDAY, 14 JUNE 2023
Speaker: Sophia in 't Veld
Country: Poland
Language: EN

And let us go back a little bit to what it is that we are talking about: spyware. You know, this stuff that creeps into your mobile phone and takes over your life without you even noticing it. And of course, we have been focusing a lot on what this means to the individual whose privacy is violated in the most horrible way.  But I think what may be even more important is what this means for democracy, because spyware is not just a technology. It is a tool in a broader toolkit, the toolkit of the authoritarian. It is a grave threat to democracy because spyware is not being used against just any citizen – and this is also why many people think, ‘oh, it doesn’t concern me. It concerns only a handful of people that I have nothing to do with.’ No, it concerns the very people who are the custodians of our democracy, the people who hold power to account, the people who scrutinise, the people who exercise oversight, journalists, oversight bodies, lawyers, NGOs, researchers, opposition politicians. And, you know, I firmly believe that democracy is about checks and balances and accountability and scrutiny. Take those away and democracy is dead. If you have no more countervailing powers, then democracy is dead. And that is the very purpose of the regimes that are using spyware against some of their own citizens. And this is not only happening in Saudi Arabia or Mexico. No, it’s happening right here on our doorstep within the European Union by EU governments. It is a democracy crisis, you might say. But let us see a little bit what happened since the news of this broke, which is now almost two years ago, July 2021, when the Pegasus Project presented its report. Justice has not been done in a single case. Not a single case. No inquiry – be it parliamentary or judicial or a police inquiry – has been concluded in a meaningful way. In not a single Member State has light been shed on the situation. Not a single case of illicit exports has been investigated and not a single license has been repealed. Colleagues, nothing has been done. Some countries have taken measures, but in most of the cases they are meaningless, or they even make matters worse. And I have to say the European Union has also been pretty much absent, with the exception of this House and maybe the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. Letters have been written to the Member States asking them for explanations, but in a very friendly way. Now I find the contrast with the response of the European Union to other crises quite stark. You know, we’ve had we’ve had a war, we’ve had a pandemic, we had inflation, we had an energy crisis, a bit longer ago, we had the banking crisis. And every time, you know, the European Union was there with a crisis response. In this case, the crisis is a democratic crisis. Democracy is the core of what the European Union is about, and yet the European Union is absent. Now, tomorrow, dear Commissioner, we are adopting a comprehensive set of recommendations, and I would really ask the Commission to follow up as much as you can, really seek the limits of your powers. And in any case, report back in great detail to the European Parliament, preferably even before the summer break, about how you intend to give a follow-up to our recommendations, because this is not the end of our work, friends. This is where it starts. Tomorrow we’re going to adopt the big sledgehammer that we will be fighting authoritarianism with and we will make sure that every single recommendation is implemented, no matter how long it takes.