Today in Strasbourg, during the European Parliament’s plenary session, a debate took place on the Pegasus spyware. MEPs Maciej Wąsik and Joachim Brudziński spoke on behalf of the ECR Group.
Maciej Wąsik emphasized that intelligence agencies must have access to modern technology, “otherwise they will be blind and deaf to drug traffickers, human smugglers, and corrupt politicians.” However, he stressed that appropriate procedures must be followed.
As he recalled, the first such system in Poland was introduced between 2012 and 2015, when Donald Tusk was prime minister. “Despite the media frenzy, not a single case has been found in which the security services in my country used such tools without the necessary court approvals,” – Wąsik noted, pointing out that the Sejm commission established in Poland to investigate irregularities in the use of Pegasus has been unable to identify any irregularities in the past 1.5 years. “Not only that, but it turns out that the commission itself is operating illegally, as determined by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal,” the MEP added.
The Polish politician also noted that Pegasus is most fiercely attacked by those “who have the most to hide.” “It was attacked by a Russian spy posing as a journalist; it was attacked by a former commissioner against whom the Belgian police are conducting an investigation into money laundering; it was attacked by a former vice president of the European Parliament accused of corruption,” the PiS politician pointed out, adding that in Poland, he is in turn attacked by individuals whom the prosecutor’s office has accused of money laundering, as well as by hateful troll farms. “Don’t be fooled. The security services cannot turn a blind eye or a deaf ear. This is a matter of security for all of us!” he emphasized.
Joachim Brudziński referred to a statement by one of his predecessors and stated that “the allegations against Poland were a political fabrication from the very beginning.” He emphasized that the actions taken by Polish intelligence agencies were always carried out under judicial oversight and targeted individuals who posed a real threat to national security or those suspected of criminal activity.
In this context, he recalled the case of the Russian GRU spy, Pavel Rubtsov, who operated under the cover of a Spanish journalist. He said that Rubtsov’s arrest “caused outright hysteria even in this Chamber” and was portrayed by the left-wing establishment as an example of the PiS government’s repression of journalists. “This journalist turned out to be a very dangerous spy, and those who defended him once again proved to be Putin’s useful idiots,” he stated.
As he noted, the hypocrisy and double standards are evidenced by the fact that European Union institutions are not reacting today to the current Tusk government’s violations of fundamental rights in Poland, to the undermining of the fundamental elements of democracy, such as the illegal takeover of public media, the financing of election campaigns in Poland by political entities outside the European Union, and the criminal suspension of funding for the largest opposition party. “You are hypocrites,” he declared.
