Greece on Friday approved tougher regulations on wiretaps after an ongoing surveillance scandal surrounding the conservative government.
The new rules, voted in by the majority party’s lawmakers, make the use of wiretap software by private individuals punishable by up to ten years in prison.
The legislation also sets tougher checks on legal wiretaps, and a three-year limit before the subjects of state surveillance can be conditionally told they had been targeted.
The wiretap scandal erupted in July when Nikos Androulakis – a European Parliament lawmaker and leader of the Greek Socialist party (Pasok/Kinal) – filed a legal complaint alleging there had been attempts to tap his mobile phone using illegal spyware known as Predator.
Within days, it emerged that Androulakis had also been under surveillance, separately, from the Greek intelligence service before he became leader of Pasok, Greece’s third largest party.
Two Greek journalists and another senior opposition politician also claim to have been under surveillance.
The government has strongly denied a succession of news reports that dozens of prominent Greeks were under surveillance too, including former premier Antonis Samaras, several serving cabinet ministers, military chiefs, media owners and journalists.
During the parliamentary debate on Thursday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called the reports “conspiracy theories” and “fairy tales…without a shred of evidence.”
He denied again that the government was in any way connected to the illegal Predator spyware.
The PM insisted Greece “borders many dangers” and challenges including migration from neighbouring Turkey.
A speaker for the bill said the threats included “terrorists, saboteurs, agents.”
In August, the Greek intelligence service chief, as well as a close aide and nephew to the prime minister, both resigned over the socialist leader’s surveillance.
Critics have noted that one of Mitsotakis’ first acts when he became prime minister in 2019 was to attach the national intelligence service to his personal office.
Main opposition leftist leader Alexis Tsipras has accused the PM of running the agency “like a personal fiefdom” and obstructing the investigation.
The Greek parliament set up a committee to investigate the scandal, which has drawn parallels to Watergate that in 1974 brought down US president Richard Nixon.
But the investigation concluded after only a month.
Opposition parties also say the committee failed to summon key witnesses including Mitsotakis, his nephew, and intelligence staff who handled the Androulakis wire-tapping case.
A European Parliament committee investigating wiretaps case in several EU states last month noted that Greece’s investigation had been insufficient.
Source: AFP
