In this post, we present to you a line-by-line verification of the IT Minister's statement on Pegasus, wherein we use a constitutional, legal, and people-centric lens to debunk and correct falsehoods and misinterpretations.
Cognisant of the legal injuries as well as the violations of fundamental rights that have occurred in light of the Pegasus spyware revelations, we wrote to the state governments of Maharashtra & Chhattisgarh to institute investigations into the use of spyware against citizens.
We wrote to the Standing Committee on IT with questions for the MHA, MeitY and MoC related to the Pegasus revelations.
Read our statement in response to the revelations made by the Pegasus Project which revealed that over 300 verified Indian mobile telephone numbers were targeted by the Israeli spyware firm, NSO Group.
8 civil society organisations from across the world including IFF have filed an amici brief before the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in California urging the Court to dismiss the NSO Group's appeal claiming sovereign immunity for the Pegasus hack.
Despite multiple government and parliamentary bodies examining the Pegasus hack, a whole year has passed and we still do not know who was responsible for this egregious violation of the privacy of human rights defenders in the country.
We wrote to the Chief Ministers of Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh urging them to establish committees to investigate the Whatsapp hack. Our key recommendations were to include victim and expert testimony in the investigation which should be carried out in a transparent manner.
We ask the Standing Committee to invite those affected by Pegasus to provide testimonials.
Press reports indicate interest has been showed by the Standing Committee on Home Affairs in examining the matter. We wrote to them with a few suggestions on the issue to take into consideration at their meeting today.