Jacek Karnowski, a Polish politician key to the liberal opposition’s 2019 general elections campaign, is the latest Pegasus target to be identified by media investigations.
Karnowski is currently the mayor of Sopot on Poland’s Baltic Sea coast.
According to Polish media, Karnowski was monitored by state surveillance in 2018-2019 when he was one of the key politicians promoting an opposition alliance to win the Senate elections.
The united opposition was successful in winning the Senate in 2019.
“This is a violation of privacy and human dignity,” Karnowski told reporters in response to the discovery, “those who monitored their political opponents should be brought before the Tribunal of the State.”
Polish outlet Wyborcza said it had uncovered Karnowski’s name on a list of Pegasus target monitored individuals released to media outlets that formed part of the Pegasus Project consortium.
According to the investigation, the Polish Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) tapped Karnowski’s phone between ten and 20 times between 2018 and 2019.
The device was reportedly cleaned of data, making it impossible to know what data was extracted by the CBA at the time.
In Poland, secret services are called on to delete data collected if they are unable to uncover or confirm a crime during the course of an investigation.
Karnowski currently acts as the head of an alliance of mayors playing a major role in the coalition of liberal opposition parties taking on the ruling PiS in this year’s parliamentary elections.
Polish intelligence services used Pegasus technology until November 2021. At that time, the Israeli company that produced the software, NSO Group, did not renew its contracts with Poland or Hungary following media revelations that the two governments were using the spyware to monitor journalists and opposition political leaders.
Meanwhile, the Greek left-wing opposition SYRIZA party has charged the Greek National Intelligence Service with using illegal spyware technology to monitor journalists, media employees and politicians.
According to a new report, spyware software Predator was used to monitor a former Meta employee at the same time that she was a target of monitoring by the Greek National Intelligence Service.
“Anyone, anywhere can fall prey to spyware hacking. I should know – I was a Predator target,” the employee in question, Artemis Seaford, wrote on Twitter. “This does not make it normal. We need our governments and international bodies to protect us.”
“I am not an official of any party, a member of the press, or a business owner with close government connections,” Seaford continued.
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