Pegasus Exposé, the Myth of Privacy in Capitalism
Sunny
On 15th August prime minister of India gave speech from the ramparts of Lal Quila. As usual it was a speech full of bigotry and lies. But while presenting one particular lie even the master liar could not control his grins and giggles. Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that he wants to make India such a country where state machinery does not interfere in privacy of an individual. It was difficult even for the master fascist propagandist to control his grinning on such a bogus claim. Pegasus has been used to put surveillance on revolutionaries, activists, BJP’s own ministers, leaders of other parliamentary parties, bureaucrats, judges of the Supreme Court, solicitor general, journalists covering international relations and intelligence and pro-people journalists. All the accused in Bhima Koregaon were under the surveillance from Pegasus. Their phones were infected and privacy was compromised. With the shadow of Pegasus software and its usage out in the open, making such a claim in a public speech could be the best comic act of the decade.
Comic act portrays contradictions of real life. Brecht used this element of comic contradiction in his play Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui where the character Arturo Ui depicting Hitler recites speech of Antoni to arouse people against the treachery of Brutus who murdered Julius Caesar. The contradiction has sharpened even more today and has potential to be produced artistically to produce vivid comic imagery. Lies, bigotry and demagogic performances of fascist leaders are in sharp contrast to the ground reality. Elements of ridicule are so rich today for every speech, promise and every bourgeois politician. Every artist and writer should today expose the hypocrisy of fascists. It is the era which still has this contradiction that needs to be revealed to the people. The crisis has matured again and the fascism has become a consistent structural feature in the long depression existing in the economy.
It is an open secret that the privacy is a myth. The hollow claims of internet privacy, secure messaging and calls has been punctured many a times. It must be clear to every democratic-minded person that this is how the bourgeois state and the intelligence machinery work. Pegasus exposé is just a peak of the iceberg. Not only the factions of bourgeoisie, opposition parties and its critic but foreign state officials are also on the list of surveillance of every bourgeois state. As proven in the exposé that Macron, Imran Khan among other premiers of the different countries were targeted by Pegasus. Investigative reporters’ group in France along with hundreds of reporters all round the world contributed to the investigative report on Pegasus. A whistle blower at Israeli cyber surveillance firm NSO provided list of fifty thousand phone numbers on the surveillance list. Citizen lab and Amnesty International proved forensically that several numbers were indeed under attack from the Pegasus spyware.
The software Pegasus was developed by Israeli cyber-surveillance firm NSO. It works under the Israel’s defence ministry.
Reporters published list of phone number listed as probable targets on Pegasus. It is one of the most powerful spyware developed. It has capability to turn a mobile phone into a surveillance device. It generates saved passwords, photos, files, search history and can control camera and microphone. It does not require user to click on messages. With zero click technology this does not require a response from target. It is different from earlier malwares as it is very difficult to detect and it can destroy itself after extracting required information leaving no trace of hack.
It is an example of targeted surveillance where infected phone comes under full control of the attacker. It is different from mass surveillance which uses keywords to trap a potential target in the net of phone connections. It has been emphasized again and again by various cyber activists that state intelligence agencies use state of art programs to hack into target’s phone or laptop to extract information or to control the infected system. The exposé has brought out the mechanism which was pointed out by likes of Snowden and Assange and various democratic rights’ groups.
17 media outlets working with Amnesty international under the name of Pegasus Project exposed that more than fifty thousand smart phone numbers were potential surveillance targets. France-based media non-profit organization Forbidden Stories and Amnesty international were leading this investigation. Almost all of these phone numbers belonged to the countries which are clients of NSO Israeli Software Company. Washington Post which was part of the Pegasus Project reported that among the phones targeted by the NSO were those of activists and journalists. Murdered Saudi Columnist Jamal Khashoggi’s close aides were also on the list. NSO’s first experiment which unfolded on a massive level was in Mexico. In Mexico only more than 15,000 numbers were on the list of surveillance. A report in Reuters states that primarily during the reign of right-wing President Enrique Peña Nieto Mexican government agencies signed contracts worth more than 160 million dollars with NSO Group between 2011 and 2018.
Wire reports that “Amnesty International, in collaboration with The Wire, was able to forensically examine the phones of 10 Indians, all of which showed signs of either an attempted hack or a successful compromise.” Wire confirmed 161 names on the snooping list. The names included the names of accused in Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case. That clearly shows that the phones of accused of Bhima Koregaon were infected and “evidences” were planted on their digital devices. Hany Babu M.T., Rona Wilson, Vernon Gonsalves, Anand Teltumbde, Shoma Sen, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Sudha Bhardwaj and others had their names on the snooping list. Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya to Banyajotsana Lahiri also featured on this list. The list also featured politicians like Rahul Gandhi, Abhishek Banerjee, Prashant Kishore to Tamil Nadu politicians and their close aides. The list also featured former supreme court judge Arun Mishra, and the woman who complained against Ranjan Gogoi. Election commissioner Ashok Lavasa to CBI chief Alok Verma, Rakesh Asthana and other bureaucrats were also put under surveillance. Various capitalists were also under the list with Anil Ambani topping the list. Journalists critical of government and those covering defense and international relations were also under snooping by government. It just shows character of surveillance which the fascist government has installed.
We must neither be complacent and nor be horror-stricken by the reports of these surveillance mechanisms. Definitely these reports call for urgent action from democratic and revolutionary forces. The state machinery and its surveillance maintain a strong fortress and have penetrated deeper to gather information against their political opponents. The foremost opponents are definitely the communist revolutionaries. Along with them the government has also kept check over its own functionaries of judiciary and bureaucracy and on various factions of bourgeoisie. The Modi-Shah duo have also kept check over their command on Supreme Court, ED, CBI and various other people who are in the list. Pegasus is just a small window to a large landscape of surveillance. The state machinery employing political police to snoop on revolutionary groups is not new.
With advancement of technology the methods of surveillance have also advanced. In the second round of the battle between capital and labour, the forces of capital are today aggressively setting up its weaponry against the disorganized and defeated side of the forces of labour. The warfare also pertains to the arena of information, which is essential in any battle. It keeps an eye not only on the enemy revolutionary camp but also on its own forces. It is no surprise because the ‘hostile brotherhood’ of the capitalist class is constituted through competition and the bourgeois state has a relative autonomy from the bourgeois class, which is enhanced in the case of a fascist state. The present long depression has made this competition very sharp. Capitalists and their governments are keeping close eyes on each other and both are keeping close watch on all progressive and revolutionary forces. The rise of right wing all over the world has given impetus to install much more armoury and high tech surveillance instruments. The defence deals between various defence corporations and defence ministry, stock market speculators, potential loan defaulters are all under surveillance of state. Even board members of big monopoly joint stock companies snoop on each other.
The economic crisis, with the potential of developing into a social and political crisis, is forcing the right wing governments to take desperate measures to crush every potential force of resistance. Fascists in India are also doing the same. The surveillance in India in the same manner penetrates through privacy of its people. However, mass surveillance to targeted surveillance existed prior to Fascist rise in 2014 in India as it has become especially pronounced in the neoliberal era of capitalist in general. Section 69 of IT act 2000 allows government to monitor data on any computer or device. Chidambram-led home ministry initiated the NATGRID, NETRA and CMS and other schemes to build an intelligence gathering system in which many agencies share the gathered resources to identify the threats. Now the fascist government of Modi is perfecting all these mechanisms of surveillance. Amit Shah has been personally commanding the beginning of NATGRID. From listening to phones on mass level to keeping an eye on every Facebook post, Tweet to Google meet discussion NATGRID classifies users using some particular trigger words.
NATGRID tracks and classifies real time data of travel, banking transactions, telecommunications. The Hindu Reports that
According to the first phase plan, 10 user agencies and 21 service providers will be connected with the NATGRID, while in later phases, about 950 additional organizations will be brought on board. In the following years, more than 1,000 organizations will be further integrated into the NATGRID. They are the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (for the Income Tax Department), the Cabinet Secretariat, the Intelligence Bureau, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence, the Narcotics Control Bureau, the Financial Intelligence Unit, and the National Investigation Agency.
The Modi government has armed itself with much bigger and effective armoury of surveillance machinery in comparison to Congress government. Modi government pee
ks through the privacy of its citizens because it is afraid that the people will stop fearing it. Even by arming itself with Pegasus and other surveillance mechanisms, it is afraid of its own people. As Mao said “All reactionaries are paper tigers. In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying, but in reality, they are not so powerful. From a long-term point of view, it is not the reactionaries but the people who are powerful.” (Mao, Talk with the American Correspondent Anna Louise Strong)
It is precisely the reason fascist government is afraid and is fortifying itself with all defence systems and weaponry.
Here we also need to understand the contradictions within the capitalist class and capitalist system in general. The obligation of the ruling bloc of the ruling class to monitor its rivals, the obligation of the ruling party to monitor the opposition parties, the obligation of the bourgeois state to put surveillance on all political opposition and the obligation of competing capitals and factions of capitals to spy each other creates a complex of contradictions. The internal contradictions of the bourgeoisie and functionaries of capital also lead to exposure of such surveillance mechanisms. This is precisely what happened with Pegasus exposé. The internal contradictions also ensure that the counter-balancing mechanisms of the bourgeois system sometimes forces the ruling bloc of the ruling class to abandon such methods for the time being, but only to devise new methods of surveillance which are equally or even more devious.
Therefore, on the one hand the revolutionary forces need to mount a combined, united and determined resistance to such methods of control and surveillance used by the ruling class and its state and mobilize more and more people for their democratic and civil rights related to privacy, and on the other hand, there is no need to become paranoid. At every step of class struggle, the ruling classes and the progressive forces are entangled in a pitched battle on every front, including surveillance and the ways to circumvent the surveillance machinery of the state that violates the basic human, democratic and civil rights of the masses. Thus the progressive forces and elements among masses also study these machinations of the ruling class and strive to devise new ways to counter them. Finally, the revolutionary and democratic forces must educate common masses about the ways of defending individual freedom and privacy from the onslaught of the capitalist state.
