Home Alfred SANT

This draft report recommends measures to address the identified contraventions and maladministration in the application of Union law related to the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware.
Its proposals are praiseworthy.
I voted in favour, because I believe it is necessary to update the relevant legal framework on a European basis: setting norms, limits and the scope for investigations of abuses; the issuance of sanctions; as well as the funding of research into surveillance systems and who runs them.
However, the concern and care we are now showing about this sensitive subject risks appearing misplaced and the outcome ineffective.
Most national security concerns are zone, regime and event related. Some areas of concern are national security related for some, and not for others.
As in rule of law issues, the salience attached to the disregard of proper democratic safeguards by one or other of the governments of member states remains dependent on the political slant of the government concerned.
There is still no common and updated legal framework that defines how modern democracies should control the cyber surveillance carried out by their own secret services.
It would be counter-productive if measures contemplated to face off the Pegasus issue were to be half-baked and inadequate.
That risk remains present.