> On Thursday, Amnesty International independently verified Citizen Lab's finding that Sen. Krzysztof Brejza was hacked multiple times in 2019 when he was running the opposition’s parliamentary election campaign.<p>How is it not a Watergate? They used Pegasus on the leader of the most important election campaign in the last 7 years in Poland.
Well, our beloved Hungarian government never made this mistake. I don't mean buying and using Pegasus against opposition politicians and journalists, which they obviously did, but admitting that they have it. (Except for one well known idiot who is a prominent founding member of the governing party, Fidesz, and regularly gets confused and spills the beans when journalists question him. Not that <i>any</i> Fidesz member or government official would talk to the press except for exceptional occasions.)<p>EDIT: typos.
The funny thing is that up until Kaczyński openly admitted to the authorities using Pegasus, the authorities would respond to the accusations with derisive comments about a game console.<p>Why a game console, of all things? Well, back in the early 1990s here in Poland, a local Nintendo NES/Famicom clone called Pegasus [1] was a thing among the kids. A hit, indeed.<p>Here’s [2] the deputy Minister of Justice dismissing the accusations in this regard, a few days ago.<p>Except the photo posted by him doesn’t even depict Pegasus the console. It’s another Famicom clone, whose chassis is a rip-off of the design of the PS One (2000).<p>[1]: <a href="https://culture.pl/en/article/pegasus-other-famiclones-how-polish-kids-discovered-nintendo-games-in-the-1990s" rel="nofollow">https://culture.pl/en/article/pegasus-other-famiclones-how-p...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://twitter.com/MWosPL/status/1477938410849452034" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/MWosPL/status/1477938410849452034</a>
>"The interview follows exclusive reports by The Associated Press that Citizen Lab, a cyber watchdog group at the University of Toronto, found that three Polish government critics were hacked with NSO’s Pegasus.<p>On Thursday, Amnesty International independently verified Citizen Lab's finding that Sen. Krzysztof Brejza was hacked multiple times in 2019 when he was running the opposition’s parliamentary election campaign.<p>Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone were doctored and aired by state-controlled TV in Poland as part of a smear campaign in the heat of the race, which the populist ruling party went on to narrowly win."<p>How come this is not prosecuted criminally?
PiS maintains power through a process similar to gerrymandering. Their base is at around 30% and they acquired power by strategically crafting a message specifically aimed at appealing to the most vulnerable and uneducated segment of the population. Their core promise is a vision of family- and country-first and glory for the heroes of a vague past. In practice PiS rules by causing controversy after controversy which effectively splits the opposition and media, and mostly covers up for the dumbest corruption schemes ever. Most Poles have a distaste for Western European neoliberal politics and are center-right conservative if not libertarian with some liberal, but at this point everybody knows PiS is just filled with cynical and opportunistic apparatchiks. The worst part is that the people who control PiS are simply wicked clever. They’ve spent the last six years continuously running a never-ending political campaign with their media at full blast, and a stand-in president who is constantly traveling and visiting key-towns to meet-greet the communities. Right when they took power in 2015 they reformed the Supreme Court by firing a bunch of judges and installing loyalists effectively breaking the constitution. It’s like a dictatorship of stupid. And what <i>must</i> be said: it’s not that Poland is turning into an actual fascist dictatorship, not that much violence is happening and our political views aren’t being really repressed. The real problem is that PiS is actually strategically weakening us as a country and nation. Especially in our international relationships. This Pegasus spyware is only yet another such example of the BS. In my own personal opinion, at this point PiS has been doing everything so poorly that I suspect that they’re actually being supported and controlled by external adversaries behind the scenes.
To make it more interesting, Poland's biggest newspaper makes quite a solid case that the purchase was funded via embezzlement [0] (Polish only).<p>Kaczyński dismissed the misappropriation of the funds as "mere technicality".<p>[0] <a href="https://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,27956090,klamstwa-w-sprawie-pegasusa.html" rel="nofollow">https://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,27956090,klamstwa-w-sprawie-pega...</a>
I don't have any extensive knowledge of the situation, but it seems to me, in the modern world, the only governments NOT using software to spy on political opponents are governments that aren't competent enough. The only ones that you hear about are the ones that are competent enough to do it, but not quite competent enough to hide it.<p>Having been raised in the 80 and 90s when we still considered Watergate to be a scandal, I find this kind of spying to be an undemocratic abuse of power. But it's the reality we live in now. Most wars these days are wars of knowledge and spying on opponents is, unfortunately, no longer a scandal, but the reality of modern power struggles.
Pardon the snark, but this appears to be a case for Marian Banaś[0] a.k.a. Banaśman - exactly the kind of hero we deserve.<p>[0] Chief of the Supreme Audit Office who was originally appointed by the ruling party to be loyal, but not exactly competent. Once the internal conflicts in the party spilled over to his family he found his redemption arc - and what an arc it is!
Poland has an authoritarian govt now.<p>They started by sacking the supreme court and installing its own judges
<a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/new-polish-regime-sparks-crisis-by-firing-five-judges-1.2453540" rel="nofollow">https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/new-polish-regi...</a><p>Last independent newspapers were bought by state owned Gas Station chain. <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/poland-state-run-oil-company-buys-leading-media-group/a-55859592" rel="nofollow">https://www.dw.com/en/poland-state-run-oil-company-buys-lead...</a><p>The only independent new TV channel was going to get shut down but recently had a last minute veto.
<a href="https://variety.com/2021/tv/global/discovery-poland-media-bill-veto-1235143529/" rel="nofollow">https://variety.com/2021/tv/global/discovery-poland-media-bi...</a><p>It defies EU who says member countries must have EU law supremacy <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/19/europe/eu-poland-rule-of-law-challenge-intl/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/19/europe/eu-poland-rule-of-law-...</a><p>They regularly have parliamentary votes late at night when only the PiS party turns up.<p>They give a lot of money to the church who then praise the party during services.<p>Its not a real democracy any more.
Morally, I find it much more acceptable for governments to use non-coercitive methods like hacking instead of coercitive methods like subpoenas requesting user data.
PiS is acting surprisingly competent, so I think big brother migh be helping them. There's only 3 powers that have direct interest here: Russia, Germany and US.<p>We had real goveremnt for less than month after 89, then we got russian puppets.<p>PO, Nowoczesna is definitely pro EU = Germany. Tusk wanted to be singer but failed so he sold the country to Germans. I would even like EU federation but older people (>50yo) are definitely agaist it.<p>Actually it's during short PiS rule that Poland joined EU and retained own currency. Both good decision in retrospective.<p>This time around they are 100% propaganda mode and this Pegasus use is definitely overreach. Make no mistake during PO days they also raided and poor teenageers. Now at least it's limited to oposition. Think Aaron Shwarz case.<p>But TBH they are better at ruling than alternatives and history shows you need to have strong grasp to pull up so to say. If anyone thinks that Germans will allow Polish economy to catch up while they rule is mistaken.<p>They want to have cheap labor nearby border and Ukrainians prefer to work in PL due to language, which makes PL economy very competitive. Good play would be to make Ukraine part of EU but RUS won't allow it, so next best play for Germany is to win propaganda game in PL or just let Russians pick Ukraine so it's win-win for both Russia and Germany. With nord stream 2 from our PoV it's Ribbentrop-Molotov lite.<p>I wish there was some better party to vote.<p>Why I think US is aiding PiS? Germans are their biggest competitors in the west. If they lose race with China then US future will depend on India, Russia and EU. They will want a wry here and Poland is perfect for that, which makes me nervous TBH.<p>Geopolitically we are like Taiwan or SK of Asia (wry against Japan and China).