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The wiretapping application, Predator, was found on the phone of a journalist in Greece. Who is responsible for this? The trail leads to the highest Greek circles.
“Thanas, have you ever dealt with this topic?” This short message and a link was received by the investigav journalist for finance, Thanasis Koukakis on July 12, 2021 on his mobile phone. The sender was unknown. It is common for journalists to receive information from strangers, who occasionally shed light on certain developments. Koukakis therefore clicked the link and allowed the Predator software to inadvertently eavesdrop on his phone. Predator is a program developed by northern Macedonian start-ups. Cytrox offers eavesdropping applications not custom-made by governments, but offers them on the free market. A US website that Crunchbase, which collects start-up and venture information, describes Cytrox as a profitable venture that “provides governments with operational solutions for the design, administration and implementation of innovative cyber-intelligence and information gathering technology in certain and clouds. ”
The Citizen Lab, a project of the University of Toronto that addresses security and human rights issues in the context of information technology, had identified Predator in 2021 on journalist Koukakis’s cell phone and found that he had been active for two months. But not only that. In a report of the investigative network “Reporters United” that in April 2022 had proved, that the journalist was intercepted by the Greek secret service, for reasons of national security. At the time, Koukakis was working on topics related to the financial world. It remains unclear to him why the research he was doing could put him in conflict with national security. “But when I found out that I was being tapped, I reported it to the relevant authority, and the tapping was stopped immediately,” Koukakis told DW. But when it asked the government to access the information collected about them, the government changed a law, so that the relevant authority could no longer provide any information.
Extensive offensive tapping?
Just shortly after the official wiretapping ended, Koukakis’s phone was infiltrated with the Predator eavesdropping application. The news portal, Inside Story has revealed that not only the journalist Thanasis Koukakis is affected by this wiretapping. They have found a total of about 50 “phishing sites”, among them media portals, the organization for transparency, Voulwatch, a football club, etc. An uninformed click of a user on these pages that are copied very accurately is enough and the eavesdropping application is installed on his mobile phone. Thanasis Koukakis suspects that the government is hiding behind the cyber attack on him, but she categorically denies this. Eliza Triantafyllidou in Inside Story asks, who might have another interest in such data. “It’s not just about journalists, but eventually also about the military, diplomats, politicians, or civil society figures,” Triantafyllidou said.
In the latest Reporters Without Borders report, Greece ranks 70th out of 108 countries in the press freedom index. Last summer it became known that the secret service was eavesdropping on journalist Stavors Maichudis. Journalists Costas Vaksevanis and Gianna Papadokou are currently due in court. Papadakout has been indicted on the basis of a new law, sharply criticized by media activists. Vaksevanis must be held accountable for conspiracy and affiliation with a criminal association. The two journalists had been investigating the Novartis scandal, which caused a stir in the world, where the great Swiss pharmaceutical concern had corrupted senior politicians in Greece.
Eleni Toloupaki recognizes this case as a prosecutor and as the former in charge of transparency she was responsible for the investigation. She collected data, according to which senior politicians of Nea Dimokratia and the socialist party PASOK had taken bribes worth millions. But now she has appeared in court. “It is a vague accusation, I am a member of a criminal association, whose members are those who with their legal or journalistic research have dared to touch politicians.” says Toloupaki for DW.
The case against her is based on assumptions and not evidence, she says. In the US Novartis admitted as early as 2018, that it had paid bribes and struck an out-of-court settlement to pay damages. But in Greece the issue has been ignored so far, when Greek Health Minister Thanos Plevis demanded in a written letter money from Novartis. For Toulopak, “this statement was published under pressure, it came because of pressure from outside, where it is followed, what is being done here with us.”
Back to democracy
However the Transparency Agency sees the country on the right track. Fighting corruption has the highest priority for the government, this authority informs DW. Only recently did the independent authority come under fire because an agency report called the allegations in the media about the illegal deportations of refugees invalid, and later revealed that the authority had only talked to officials. coast guard. In total only one non-governmental organization and one migrant were interviewed.
Stefanos Loukopoulos from the transparency initiative, Voulwatch sees this authority with a lot of potential, but criticizes the fact that there is a lack of works. “In the three years of its establishment, this agency has done very little to really mention the country’s problems,” the expert concludes. “The basic principles of democracy and the rule of law are increasingly being put to the test in Greece. According to him, these steps back have been documented. “The government’s efforts to construct certain narratives and distort reality are very problematic.” On the other hand, some restrictions on the freedom of the press are also worrying. “A small number of wealthy shipowners control a large part of the media,” he said. “They have close ties with the government,” concluded Stefanos Loukopoulos
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