Who Will Watch the Watchers?

 ‘The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, announced this Monday from the Moncloa, (despite it being a public holiday in Madrid), that the mobile phones of the President of the Government Pedro Sánchez and of the Minister of Defence Margarita Robles have been infected by the Pegasus program…’ La Vanguardia has the story. El Huff Post is quite excitable: ‘it is the worst case of spying during Spain’s democracy’.

The phone-spying in these cases occurred last summer. This type of phone-intrusion is not just ‘listening in’, but rather, the entire unit becomes open to inspection: photos, Whatsapp, Gmail, SMS and so on…

Did it happen, and if so, have we been told by the CNI intelligence agency just now of something occurring last year to deflect attention (or even blame) from the Catalonian spy-issue? Conspiracy theories abound for the time being, as the Audiencia Nacional (wiki) investigates.

It also appears that anything up to 1,400 phones may have been compromised in Spain.

Indeed, the system could likely be operating all over Europe, as an inquiry begins in the European Parliament into the use of this illegal software.

What was happening last year as the Spanish President’s phone was being examined? During the May and June 2021 break-ins, the Moroccan issue over Ceuta and Melilla was much in the public eye – and Morocco, Bless it, is very friendly with Israel.

So, who else might be in line for spying on the President? The secret service, allied in some way with those of a conservative inclination? The Americans, allied through Israel with the Moroccans? The Russians (flavour of the month)? The fellow upstairs who is always on his computer?

Maybe it’s all just a trick to deflect the inquiry away from the Catalonian phone-taps?

Which brings us to Catalan News here: ‘The University of Toronto-based tech crime research group Citizen Lab is investigating whether another 150 people could have also been targeted with Pegasus spyware in the wake of the Catalangate revelations, the online newspaper El Confidencial reported on Saturday. Pegasus spyware allows people to control phones remotely by gaining access to a device's memory and activating cameras and microphones…’

As Margarita Robles the Minister of Defence (the minister in charge of the secret service, the CNI) was herself allegedly spied upon, one again questions who is responsible, and who is in charge. The CNI has the Pegasus spy-ware – they have admitted as much – and, well, it would seem likely that they would use it, to Protect the State, even from itself.