Mesterhazy discusses Pegasus allegations with security agency chief
Mesterhazy told a press conference after his meeting with Hedvig Szabo that the NSZ chief gave a guarantee that the agency had never spied on anyone without permission. Mesterhazy added, however, that because of a confidentiality statement he had signed, he was only able to provide general information about his meeting with Szabo.
Mesterhazy said he had been told that the NSZ only provided the technical framework for the operations of other organisations such as the prosecutor’s office or the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and was therefore not responsible for their analysis either. This, he explained, meant that it was the organisations in question that ordered the surveillance operation, and furthermore, the NSZ was not responsible for making sure that an operation was lawful. Most such operations are approved by a court while some are signed off by the justice minister, he added.
Meanwhile, Mesterhazy said the justice minister’s office had still not responded to his request for a meeting to discuss the Pegasus affair.
The politician said he was convinced that the government had access to and was using the spyware.
Mesterhazy also called for an investigation into whether Hungary’s use of Pegasus could have allowed any hacker groups to get a hold of information that could potentially compromise national security.
He said a parliamentary investigative committee should also be set up to look into the affair once the Investigative Prosecution Office of the Capital concludes its own probe.
Earlier this month Mesterhazy discussed the use of the Pegasus spyware in Hungary with the director general of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Last month, data protection authority NAIH said it had launched an official investigation into press reports that the spyware licenced by the Israeli NSO Group had been used to hack the mobile phones of specific targets in multiple countries.
Parliamentary committee declares meeting on spy software confidential
Janos Stummer, of Jobbik, said Interior Minister Sandor Pinter and Pal Volner, a state secretary of the justice ministry, attended the meeting, as well as four ruling party members of the committee.
Opposition members had proposed setting up an investigative subcommittee, but the majority voted against the motion, Stummer said.
The government officials “did not deny that politicians and journalists had been surveilled,” Stummer said.
Zsolt Molnar, the committee’s Socialist member, said the meeting’s “only merit was that it had quorum”. Lacking “to the point, unequivocal answers, the suspicion of obfuscation and secrecy grew”, he said. Without an investigative committee, “we can only debate issues of faith,” he said.
Peter Ungar of LMP said that while national security was an important national interest, “it would be good to know how many times [was the spy software used] in the country’s interest and how many times in [Prime Minister] Viktor Orban’s”.
Last month, data protection authority NAIH said it had launched an official investigation into press reports that the spyware licenced by the Israeli NSO Group had been used to hack the mobile phones of specific targets in multiple countries.
