Italy’s national union for journalists has submitted a criminal complaint to prosecutors in Rome after Giorgia Meloni’s government shut down questions in parliament over suspicions it had illegally used spyware technology to hack the phones of critics instead of criminals.
The legal action on Wednesday was triggered by the absence of clarity from the government since revelations emerged in late January that a migrant activist and Francesco Cancellato, an investigative journalist, were among at least seven people in Italy whose mobile phones had been targeted by an entity using Graphite, a military-grade spyware produced by the Israel-based Paragon, which is intended for use on criminals.
Fury over the alleged spyware hacks was compounded after Lorenzo Fontana, the president of the Italian parliament, signed a document on Tuesday, seen by the Guardian, which invokes a rule allowing the government to refrain from responding to questions on the scandal raised by opposition MPs, claiming that “all unclassified information has already been shared” and that any other details were under state secrecy rules.
Meloni’s office has denied that domestic intelligence services or the government were behind the alleged hacks. The Guardian was the first to report that Paragon had terminated its contract with Italy over what a person close to the matter said was a breach of Italy’s contract with the firm, which forbids use of its spyware against journalists or other members of civil society.
The Italian government initially denied the relationship had been severed, but late on Friday, Italy’s intelligence agency, Aise, acknowledged that the relationship had been suspended, according to the Ansa news agency. Ansa reported that the service would be suspended until an internal investigation into the matter had concluded.
During a meeting last week with Copasir, the parliamentary committee for the intelligence services, Giovanni Caravelli, Aise’s chief, admitted the agency had used the Paragon spyware but not to monitor journalists or activists.
But the union FNSI, which with the Italian Order of Journalists submitted the legal complaint “against unknown individuals”, is sceptical.
“Was Francesco Cancellato the only journalist in Italy targeted? We don’t think so,” said Alessandra Costante, FNSI’s secretary general. “We want clarity, we want journalists to be able to do their job without the risk of being intercepted. We’re dealing with facts that not only violate the criminal code but the constitution itself. It is also extremely serious that the government has decided not to report to parliament.”
It remains unclear which government body may have ordered the use of the Paragon spyware and whether any such use of spyware was cleared by a judge.
Matteo Renzi, the former prime minister, accused the government of “wounding democracy” while Federico Fornaro, an MP for the Democratic party, said the government’s avoidance of questions was “a slap in the face to parliament”.
Spyware was used to target Luca Casarini, founder of the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans, who has been a vocal critic of Italy’s alleged complicity in abuses suffered by migrants in Libya, according to an alert Casarini received from WhatsApp.
The US-based messaging app said in late January that 90 of its users, including journalists and members of civil society, had been targeted by entities using Paragon spyware. It has sent alerts to individuals who were targeted.
“By refusing to answer the questions in parliament, the government is laying bare its deep difficulties,” said Casarini, who has reported the surveillance against him to prosecutors in Palermo. “Regardless of which agency deployed this spyware against me, these wiretaps are entirely illegal. There is no doubt that the targets are political opponents of the government. This is a tactic of authoritarian governments.”
On Wednesday, his NGO released information conveyed to him by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, which tracks digital threats against civil society and has analysed Casarini’s phone. The Toronto researchers told the NGO they hoped to trace the agency responsible for the attack.
“The analysis of the cyber-espionage attack suffered by Luca Casarini could reveal very interesting details about its source,” the researchers said, “potentially even pinpointing the private company entrusted with such operations – and, by extension, the eventual client.”
They added: “There is no doubt that only government agencies could have employed such technology.”
If reports that the spyware was used to target people who were critical of the government’s policies are proved to be true, then it could represent a severe constitutional breach of democratic rights.
“Preventive wiretaps may be conducted by intelligence agencies or the police only in cases of [the targeted individuals] being a serious danger to the national and economic security of the nation,” said Giuseppe Inzerillo, a criminal law expert in Palermo. “Such measures can also be employed before a crime has been committed, typically targeting potential terrorists or mafia members.’”
However, critics argue that preventive wiretaps operate at the very limits of constitutionality. In practice, a prime minister, interior minister or justice minister may authorise intelligence officials to intercept communications and conversations, or to collect metadata from individuals deemed a “threat to national security”.
“Legal experts have long criticised this practice, noting that the targeted individuals have no means of defence,” said Inzerillo.
