Pegasus Snooping Row In Supreme Court As CPM Attacks Government

The petition says the government has neither accepted nor denied whether the spyware was bought and used by its agencies.

Snooping is against the fundamental rights of citizens and runs foul of the privacy judgment, the CPM said, seeking immediate Supreme Court-monitored SIT probe into the Israeli-made Pegasus spyware after reports of its use in India emerged this week. More than 300 phone numbers in India appeared on the list as potential targets of Israeli spyware Pegasus, which is sold only to governments. Evidence of attempted hacking has been found on the phones of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, poll savant Prashant Kishor, two sitting union ministers, a former election commissioner, family members of Mehbooba Mufti, Delhi-based Kashmiri journalists, among others. The report into the spying scandal is based on a leaked database accessed by Paris-based media non-profit Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International that was shared with a host of publications around the world, including The Wire In India, for a collaborative investigation.