Police on Monday rebuffed accusations that its use of the NSO Group's Pegasus spyware technology exceeded its authority, saying "in terms of the use of technological measures, the matter fell under the officers' purview."
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Israeli officials were rattled by a recent Calcalist report that exposed the scope of the alleged misuse of the notorious surveillance technology that extended to politicians, government functionaries, and social activists.
In a letter to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Pinhas Peled – head of the Ometz NGO for an equal and just Israeli society – called for a commission of inquiry into the matter he called was "a democratic terrorist attack" and "a scandal that is bound to shock all those truly caring about democracy and the rights of the individual."
He urged for the commission to be headed by renowned judges and jurists abroad, stopping all appointments in the public service and dismissing anyone who provided false information in the debacle.
On Monday, Bennet said, "Pegasus and similar tools are very important in the war on terror and the fight against serious crime, but they are not intended for widespread phishing among Israeli citizens or public figures.
"We need to understand exactly what happened. The deputy attorney general is looking into the matter. Once we know what happened we will not leave the public to wonder – we understand how serious this is."
He later said, "You want a tool like this when fighting crime families and serious offenses. I don't want to discard the tool itself, rather regulate its use."
Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Tuesday court hearing was canceled after claims about illicit hacking of figures tied to the case surfaced, said, "This is a black day for the state of Israel. Without referring to my issue, which of course has wide implications, I think this case concerns all citizens of the country – not Right, not Left, all citizens of the country without exception."
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