“One of the biggest scandals in recent years.” Pegasus shook Poland. The time of reckoning has come

On January 16, it will consider a draft resolution on the establishment of an investigative commission to examine the advisability of operational and reconnaissance activities undertaken using the Pegasus spy software. Deputies’ investigators will check the legality, correctness and purposefulness of operational and reconnaissance activities undertaken by the services, state institutions and members of the Council of Ministers during the government period, i.e. 2015-2023. This will be the second investigative commission (after the commission for envelope elections) established during this term of the Sejm.

The Pegasus software commission will be launched

“” describes that this committee will probably be headed by Civic Platform MP Marcin Bosacki. Deputy Minister of Justice Krzysztof Śmiszek said in an interview that he expected the commission to “explain in-depth (…) what the PiS state has looked like over the last 8 years.” – In my opinion, the PiS state was a state of eavesdropping, a state of surveillance, a state of looking behind the curtains, under the covers, into the alcove of citizens and people from the opposition, because this was the philosophy of this system, the philosophy of the Law and Justice state – he said.

He also mentioned that the commission was to determine “how, with what money, by whose decisions the program was purchased.” According to Śmiszek, the committee should include, among others: Zbigniew Ziobro or Jarosław Kaczyński. – Nothing that happened in the PiS state, especially of such caliber, (…) could have happened, in my opinion, without knowledge – he explained. However, the president of Law and Justice in 2022 said that the establishment of a parliamentary investigative commission in this matter would serve “black propaganda”. – There is no doubt that if there were abuses involving wiretapping, they did not happen in our times – .

Law and Justice politicians demanded that the commission’s investigation be extended also to the period of government of the PO-PSL coalition, which the investigative commission would deal with. PiS MP Marek Ast pointed, among other things, to cases where operational and reconnaissance activities were carried out against several dozen journalists at that time. However, the Legislative Committee rejected this amendment.

At the same time, an intensive audit is underway in the secret services, including regarding the use of Pegasus spy software against politicians of the former opposition. The minister-coordinator of secret services said in Program 1 of Polish Radio that after its completion, the government will make the results public. He also pointed out that thanks to the investigative commission, “the public will certainly learn a lot about this subject.” – I consider it one of the biggest scandals in Polish politics after 1990 – he added.

What is Pegasus?

Pegasus is one of the most dangerous spy programs in history because it contains code that perfectly copes with even the best security features built into smartphones. All it takes to infect a phone is one careless click on a crafted link, although experts point out that “infection” with Pegasus is also possible without any interaction from the victim. The infection occurs automatically when the victim receives a link in an instant messenger or message.

Pegasus enables, among others: viewing the call list, contact book, location, SMS messages, e-mails, information from Facebook, Gmail, WhatsApp and other applications. It also gives you access to photos, microphone, browser history and phone settings. In short, it offers unlimited surveillance possibilities.

Who was spied on with Pegasus?

In December 2021, the Associated Press revealed that Pegasus was used, among others, to the surveillance of attorney Roman Giertych, who represented leading opposition politicians; it also spied on prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek, who opposed the purges in the Polish justice system, the head of Agrounia Michał Kołodziejczak, journalist Tomasz Szwejgiert and opposition politician Krzysztof Brejza – previously the head of the electoral staff of the Civic Coalition. His phone was attacked with Pegasus as many as 33 times.

also that the devices of employees of the Supreme Audit Office were attacked with Pegasus over 6,000 times. In total, the system was infected with approximately 500 devices over two years.