The embattled managing director of The Hindu newspaper N Ram and Sashi Kumar have moved the Supreme Court for an independent probe on the alleged mass surveillance of journalists, lawyers, ministers, Opposition politicians, constitutional functionaries, and civil society activists, using military-grade Israeli spyware Pegasus.
The petition reads, “Such mass surveillance using a military-grade spyware abridges several fundamental rights and appears to represent an attempt to infiltrate, attack and destabilise independent institutions that act as critical pillars of our democratic set-up,”.
The publisher now wants full disclosure from the government on whether it had authorised surveillance to muzzle free speech and to supress dissent.
“Surveillance/interception is justified only in cases of public emergency or in the interests of public safety, and the existence of such conditions must be inferred reasonably and cannot be determined solely on the assessment of the government… The hack/interception/decryption occasioned by the Pegasus spyware constitutes a criminal offence,” the petition said.
“It can conduct extremely intrusive surveillance, including tracking and recording calls, reading text and WhatsApp messages, collecting passwords, reading emails, accessing photos and videos, activating camera and microphone and enabling them to record events, and harvesting information from apps. It can be installed as simply as by placing a call on the targeted device, even if the call is not picked up,” the petition submitted.
It must be noted that N Ram’s credibility as the publisher of the Hindu has taken a beating after the newspaper published doctored information with regards to the so-called Rafale jet scam and the newspaper recently published an article calling Bengaluru MP Tejasvi Surya ‘a virus’, and after receiving flak changed the headline.
However, it is an open secret that N Ram has nothing but contempt for the BJP and hatred for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and he has still not come to terms that the Rafale fighter deal was legitimate and continues to peddle the lie.
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