Marxistindia Digest, Vol 1272, Issue 1

[Anil Chandran]

marxistindia
news digest from cpi(m)
Today's Topics:
   1. Illegal surveillance of Indians (news from the cpi(m))
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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2021 15:55:10 +0530
July 19, 2021
Press Statement

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the
following statement:

BJP Government Must Answer:
Who Authorized Illegal Surveillance of Indians?

Very concerning information has emerged on the government of India procuring
the Pegasus spyware from an Israeli firm, NSO, the worldwide leader in cyber
surveillance.  NSO has categorically clarified that it deals only with
"vetted" governments.  These investigations reveal a large number of
journalists and human rights activists have been targeted for hacking their
smart phones for surveillance.  Globally more than 50,000 instances
concentrated in countries known to engage in surveillance of their citizens
and also known to have been clients of the NSO has surfaced.  Among the
countries mentioned is India in the company of Rwanda, Morocco, Saudi
Arabia, UAE, Mexico etc.

This report says, "In India, the numbers of phones belonging to hundreds of
journalists, activists, opposition politicians, government officials and
business executives were on the snooping list".  Reports in Indian media
have named at least 40 journalists who are under surveillance of this spy
software, Pegasus.

Two years ago, the CPI(M) had raised in Parliament that this dangerous
spyware was being used in India as revealed by WhatsApp.  The Modi
government's response had not categorically denied that it engaged the
services of NSO but claimed that there is no "unauthorized surveillance". 

With these revelations, it is clear that this government has engaged NSO for
such surveillance against its own citizens.    The Central government must
come clean on what is its engagement with NSO, what are the terms and how
much our public funds have been paid for this.

Use of a cyber spy software to hack smart phones even by the government is
prohibited under Indian laws. Under what law has the government undertaken
such surveillance activities over citizens?  The right to privacy is a
fundamental right as laid down by the Supreme Court, but this BJP government
is prevaricating on legislating the privacy law.

Earlier instances of hacking smart phones and computers of human rights
activists have been exposed.  Material is digitally planted on their
devices.  It is then used for their arrests under draconian laws.

This is unacceptable levels of authoritarianism employing fascistic methods.
The `snoop, plant, arrest' formula employed by this BJP government is a
violation of the fundamental rights of Indian citizens.

The BJP Central government must answer and come clean on using the Pegasus
cyber software for surveillance of Indian citizens in an illegal and
unauthorized manner. 
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End of Marxistindia Digest, Vol 1272, Issue 1
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