The espionage scandal Catalan politicians and pro-independence activists through the mobile phone tapping program pegasus took an unexpected turn this Monday when the President of the Government himself, Pedro Sánchez, and the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, joined the list of spies. Although several heads of state and government (from Emmanuel Macron to Mohammed VI) had already appeared as potential targets of the entities, in principle governmental, that have used Pegasus, the case denounced this Monday by the Minister of the Presidency, Felix Bolanos, adds a worrying factor: the infestation of theoretically shielded devices by the bodies that ensure the security of the communications of the highest State authorities was effective, downloaded a very high volume of information and went unnoticed. If we look at the identity of those affected, it could be concluded that the information revealed this Monday makes it no longer possible to speak (or not only) of ‘Catalangate’. But it would be wrong, or at least partial and insufficient, to focus on who is being spied on. And even more to form an assessment of what happened from it. It was neither forgivable without more nuances if the spies were the pro-independence politicians linked to the ‘procés’ (or scandalous just for that), nor does it now go to a qualitatively different level of seriousness only because State authorities (as is the ‘president’ Aragonès ) go from suspects to victims, Not even the well-founded suspicion that the two parties to the dialogue table were spied on is enough to ask the independence movement to stop making Pegasus a ‘casus belli’.
Beyond the need to identify who is behind of this espionage scandal, more important than who is what. To some of those questions Robles will have to answerthis Wednesday in the Congressional Defense Commission, and the director of the CNI, Paz Esteban, when the Official Secrets is convened. Although there are severe limitations on what information may be provided, and what may or may not be disclosed without committing a crime of revealing secrets, the seriousness of what happened requires that certain explanations be made public.
must be known who has access to the wiretapping system. It is necessary to know not only what control mechanisms there are on paper over their use, when they have been applied and how (it is evident that this has been the case) they have been circumvented. It is necessary to clarify when the colossal invasion of personal privacy has been practiced strictly when there were indications of presumably criminal activities and when there was not, and if it has been spied on for no other reason than the political orientation of the victim.
The dates of the intrusion in the communications of Sánchez and Robles coincide with the moments in which the Government assessed the pardons for pro-independence politicians. And also with the height of the tensions with Morocco. Thus, the possible perpetrators multiply. It would be serious, and very serious, for the services of a foreign country to have access to this level of information in the midst of a diplomatic crisis. It would not be less so than the so-called ‘sewers’ of the state act autonomously against politicians or citizens without substantiated judicial support. The worst case scenario, that there are powers within the State capable of spying even on the Minister of Defense and the President of the Government through a channel that is not (in the words of Minister Bolaños) “illegal” and “external”, should be unimaginable. .