AG Orders Shin Bet, Mossad to Weigh In on Pegasus Probe

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara on Tuesday ordered the Israel Security Agency and Mossad intelligence agency to weigh in on the investigation into the Israel Police’s alleged illegal use of NSO Group’s Pegasus surveillance technology.

A series of exposés by financial daily Calcalist revealed an unprecedented use of the spyware, originally developed as a counterterrorism measure, against civilians, including politicians and government functionaries, social activists, protesters, public servants and businesspeople.

According to the reports, this “intelligence phishing expedition” was conducted prior to any official investigation against the targets and without judicial warrants, despite police officials knowing that any information obtained sans such warrants was inadmissible in court.

So far, 26 people have been identified as victims of the Pegasus hack, including several ministries’ directors-general, former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s son, Avner, key witnesses in the corruption case against Netanyahu, union leaders, and several mayors: Miriam Feirberg (Netanya), Yoram Shimon (Mevaseret Zion), Yaakov Peretz (Kiryat Ata), and Motti Sasson (Holon).

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has ordered a full review of the names listed in Calcalist’s report ahead of the final decision on whether the investigation into the spyware fiasco will be headed by a parliamentary, ministerial, independent or state commission of inquiry, as each could wield different authority over the procedure.

The decision to include Shin Bet and Mossad cyber experts in the investigation stems from the fact that these are the only two intelligence agencies in Israel that are familiar with the full scope of Pegasus and similar spyware.

As the police cannot review themselves in this case, and as NSO is a private company whose employees cannot access police computer systems without supervision, it is necessary to involve cyber experts from the intelligence community in the investigation.

Meanwhile, as calls for the formation of an independent commission of inquiry grow, Yisrael Hayom learned that a parliamentary commission of inquiry already looked into the issue of wiretapping 15 years ago.

The panel presented its findings in 2009, following two years of work, but the 34-page report, which included legislative amendments that perhaps could have prevented the Pegasus scandal, were largely ignored.

Among the articles in the report were recommendations for further study of legislative issues, enhancing the police’s own oversight system, creating quality indices to examine wiretapping orders that will be submitted to the court at various points of the procedure, as well as limiting the number of judges who can issue such orders and requiring those who do to undergo special training.

Sources familiar with the work of the 2007 committee told Yisrael Hayom on Tuesday that the Pegasus scandal “proves that the Israel Police not only sidelined the recommendations made at the time, they ignored it completely.”

“In many ways, the conclusions of the commission of inquiry that will be set up now were written as early as 2009, but the police preferred to ignore them and act independently without supervision,” one official said.

The fact that the police so blatantly ignored past recommendations, he added, “means that the next investigation must be held by a state commission of inquiry, as clearly, findings submitted by a committee set up by a political entity will again be ignored.”