‘Snooping conveys journalism now equated with terror’ — Editors Guild of India seeks Pegasus probe

Editors Guild of India says Pegasus expose ‘demands deep introspection and inquiry into the kind of society we are heading towards’.

Illustration: Ramandeep Kaur | ThePrint Team

New Delhi: The Editors Guild of India Wednesday expressed shock at the Pegasus Project expose that has revealed suspected attempts to snoop on thousands of journalists, activists, academics, NGO employees and lawyers, among others, by multiple governments. These include dozens of Indian citizens, including opposition leaders, journalists and Union ministers.

The expose stems from an alleged database of potential snooping targets that has been acquired by a global consortium of media companies. The numbers allegedly belong to people identified as targets by the clients of Israel’s NSO Group, which owns the sophisticated spyware Pegasus. 

The company claims to deal only with “vetted governments”.

Presence on the list reportedly indicates that a number was identified for potential snooping and doesn’t confirm if the plan went through. 

The estimated 300 Indian numbers on the list included those of multiple journalists and activists, besides Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, newly-appointed Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, political strategist Prashant Kishor, and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s MP nephew Abhishek Banerjee.

Here is the full statement of the Guild:

“The Editors Guild of India is shocked by the media reports on the widespread surveillance, allegedly mounted by government agencies, on journalists, civil society activists, businessmen and politicians, using a hacking software known as Pegasus, created and developed by the Israeli company NSO. The reports, which have been published worldwide over the last few days by a consortium of 17 publications, points towards surveillance by multiple governments across the world. Since NSO claims that it only sells this software to governments clients vetted by the Government of Israel, it deepens suspicion of involvement of Indian government agencies in snooping on its own citizens. 

While some of the instances of surveillance might have been targeted against those who may be seen as credible national security threat, what is disturbing is that a large of such targets were journalists and civil society activists. This is a brazen and unconstitutional attack on freedom of speech and press. This act of snooping essentially conveys that journalism and political dissent are now equated with ‘terror’. How can a constitutional democracy survive if governments do not make an effort to protect freedom of speech and allows surveillance with such impunity?

This is a moment that demands deep introspection and inquiry into the kind of society we are heading towards, and how far we may have veered away from the democratic values enshrined in our Constitution.

The Guild demands an urgent and independent inquiry into these snooping charges, under the aegis of Supreme Court of India. We also demand that this inquiry committee should include people of impeccable credibility from different walks of life — including journalists and civil society — so that it can independently investigate the facts around the extent and intent of snooping using the services of Pegasus.”