Greek Wiretapping Scandal Of 2022

The 2022 Greek wiretapping scandal, sometimes called Greek Watergate in reference to its similarities to the United States Watergate scandal, refers to the prolonged and en masse monitoring of the mobile phones of individuals prominent in the Greek political scene, including the president of the social democratic party, PASOK, Nikos Androulakis, the journalists Thanassis Koukakis and Stavros Michaloudis, as well as members of the government and close affiliates of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, among others.

Precursors to the main events

On 8 July 2019, just after the 2019 Greek legislative election, the newly elected prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis placed the National Intelligence Service (NIS) under his direct control. On 9 August 2019, Panagiotis Politis, a professor and syndicalist in University of Thessaly, stated that he had found a GPS tracker in his car. In November 2019, GPS trackers were found on cars and motorcycles belonging to members of the anarcho-communist collective ''Taksiki Antepithesi'' (Social Class Counterattack) and a camera facing the collective's headquarters was found placed on a stationed car, which was later taken away with riot police escort. These events however were not addressed by most of mainstream media at the time.

In March 2021, the New Democracy Mitsotakis government, supported by the PASOK party, changed the law (826/145 of the law 2472/1997) regarding wiretappings by the NIS, retroactively removing citizens' right to be informed of their surveillance after it had been concluded. Ιn 2021 alone, 15,000 surveillance orders were issued.

The main events

The case reached media spotlight when opposition politician Nikos Androulakis revealed in July 2022 that there was an attempted hack of his mobile phone. At that point two journalists, Thanassis Koukakis and Stavros Michaloudis, had already made similar accusations. The mobile phones of all three individuals were hacked with the illegal software called Predator, although it was only successfully installed on the journalists' phones. The revelations were followed by the resignations of the head of the NIS, Panagiotis Kontoleon, and the General Secretary of the Prime Minister and his nephew, Grigoris Dimitriadis.

Financial journalist Thanasis Koukakis who had previously investigated the Greek banking sector, heard from a government source that he was being surveilled by the Greek secret service. It was later discovered the violation of the privacy of his communications through the Predator software that had infected his mobile phone, on March 28, 2022, after an audit carried out on his behalf by the "Citizen Lab" of the University of Toronto. On July 26, 2022, the president of PASOK, Nikos Androulakis, filed a complaint to the Supreme Court for personal data breach, as the presence of a link related to the illegal Predator software was detected on his mobile phone.

In July 2022, the Special Permanent Committee on Institutions and Transparency of the Parliament was convened where the Head of the NIS, Panagiotis Kontoleon and the president of Communications Privacy Authority (AADE), Christos Rammos, attended. Leaks from the meeting were circulated in the media according to which Kontoleon admitted that NIS was monitoring Koukakis and that this happened at the request of foreign services. A few days later, EFSYN published an investigation linking the then General Secretary of the Prime Minister, Grigoris Dimitriadis, to the company that supplies the predator software in Greece. On August 5, 2022, Dimitriadis resigned from the position of General Secretary to the Prime Minister. Less than an hour later, Panagiotis Kontoleon, the leader of the NIS also resigned.

On Monday, August 8, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis made a brief statement on the issue of wiretappings, issuing that he did not know about the wiretapping of Androulakis and that if he had known, he would not have allowed it to happen. The opposition claimed that it was impossible that Mitsotakis did not know as NIS is under his supervision.Presidential Degree 81/2019 - OGG 119/Α/9-7-2019

A commission of inquiry was later upvoted after the proposal was submitted by PASOK. The proceedings lasted less than a month with the inquiry ending is stalemate with the government considering the issue closed and no evidence published about the use of Predator. However, in November more names were revealed to be involved in the list of targetted individuals. On December 8, Mitsotakis ardently refuted in parliament the allegations that he could have ordered a surveillance of the Minister of Labour Kostis Hatzidakis, or of the Chief of the Hellenic Armed Forces, Konstantinos Floros. When asked if it is possible that departments under his personal control could have ordered it, with him claiming ignorance, he left parliament without answering. On December 16, it was revealed that ADAE, a Greek independent authority safeguarding the privacy of telecommunications, had confirmed the surveillance of MEP Giorgos Kyrtsos and investigative journalist Tasos Telloglou after carrying out an audit.

On January 24, 2023, responding to a question by Alexis Tsipras regarding six specific individuals, including Kostis Hatzidakis and Konstantinos Floros, ADAE officially confirmed that all of them had been under surveillance by the National Intelligence Service, a department under Mitsotakis' direct control.

Hacking of Artemis Seaford

According to The New York Times, Greece's national intelligence agency allegedly wiretapped and hacked the phone of Artemis Seaford, a former security policy manager at Meta. Seaford worked for Meta from 2020 to 2022 and was surveilled using the Predator spyware while living partly in Greece. Seaford was made aware of the possible hack when her name appeared on the leaked list of spyware targets in November 2022. Cybersecurity researchers at Citizen Lab confirmed that Predator infected her phone for at least two months starting in September 2021. Seaford was also reportedly wiretapped for a year.

This constituted further indication that the NIS was using the spyware, as it is yet another case of "double" spying using both hacking and the legal wiretapping tools in conjunction. Moreover, the SMS containing the link that was used to infect the victim's phone used accurate data about the victim's vaccination appointments.

Seaford stated that she does not know why the government would target her, as the hacking remains unexplained and NIS has refused to provide evidence.

Distribution of Predator

In November 2022, the Greek Foreign Ministry provided documents about its role in exporting Predator to foreign countries, despite earlier claims that the government had no relations with the company selling the spyware.

After the outbreak of clashes in Sudan and relevant accusations by the opposition, Greek Alternate Foreign Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis admitted that the government gave an export license for supplying the Sudanese government with the Predator spyware.

International attention

The international press has dealt extensively with the issue. ''The Guardian'' compared the government to the Greek junta, and ''The New York Times'' referred to it as the "rot at the heart of Greece". The government representative, John Oikonomou, verbally attacked the journalist of ''Politico'', Nektaria Stamoulis for her handling of the issue, which caused the agency's reaction saying that "Nektaria was brutally abused by the Greek government". The European Commission sent a letter to the Greek Government asking about the surveillance.

The targeting of journalists during the course of the wiretapping scandal led Greece to fall from the 70th to the 108th place on the 2022 Reporters Without Borders press freedom ranking, the lowest position of any European country, with it remaining so as of 2023.

PEGA Committee

On November 3, 2022, the commission came to Greece to investigate the use of illegal software by the Greek government.

On May 8, 2023, its final report was approved and adopted by the European Parliament. It concluded that there were violations of EU law, and issued ten recommendations to Greece, calling it to urgently act to reverse essentially all laws passed by the New Democracy government regarding the NIS, to take actions and provide safeguards in order for the rule of law to be protected in the country and the scandal to be independently investigated, including implementing the, as of yet still unenforced in Greece, Whistleblowers Directive as well as inviting Europol to the country to participate in the investigations, and to revoke all possible illegal export licences of spyware, including the one to Sudan.

Namelist

On November 5, Documento newspaper published a list of names that were under surveillance. Among others, according to the claims of the newspaper, under survelliance was the former Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Dendias, the former Ministers of Citizen Protection, Olga Gerovasili and Michalis Chrisochoidis, the Regional Governor of Attica, Giorgos Patoulis, the editors Alexis Papahelas, Antonis Dellatolas and Yiannis Kourtakis, the former president of National Public Health Organization, Panagiotis Arkoumaneas, former Minister of Karamanlis' Cabinet and former Mayor of Athens, Dimitris Avramopoulos, former Minister of Samaras' Cabinet, Olga Kefalogianni, the Minister of Labour, Kostis Hatzidakis, the deputy and former Government Spokesperson, Aristotelia Peloni, former Minister of Health and current Minister of Tourism, Vasilis Kikilias, Minister for Development and Investment and Vice President of the current governing party, Adonis Georgiadis and the President of Aris FC, Theodoros Karypidis. It has been stated that the monitoring of Theodoros Karypidis was intended to side-monitor president of Olympiacos and Nottingham Forest F.C., Evangelos Marinakis.

References

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Political scandals in Greece
2022 in Greece
2022 crimes in Greece
Government of Greece
Espionage scandals and incidents
Surveillance scandals