Relations with Parliament Minister
Luca Ciriani on Wednesday denied reports that Israeli company
Paragon Solutions had terminated its client relationship with
Italy amid a furore over the alleged illegal use of its
'Graphite' military-grade hacking software to spy on journalists
and activists in many countries, including Italy.
"Like all intelligence agencies in the world, the Italian
services have for many years made use of tools such as those
produced and supplied by the company Paragon Solutions in the
name of national security in order to combat terrorist or
criminal organizations," Ciriani told a question time session in
the Lower House.
He said the spy software was used with "respect of the
Constitution and of the laws in the strictest way.
"This strict respect applies first and foremost to those
specifically protected by that law, primarily journalists," he
continued.
"It must be acknowledged that Paragon Solutions guaranteed the
provision of its services... with the utmost professionalism and
seriousness.
"No one has terminated any contract with the intelligence
community in recent days.
"All the systems have been, and are, fully operational against
those who attack the interests and security of the nation".
The legal team of the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans said Monday
that they filed a legal complaint in Palermo asking authorities
to investigate who allegedly ordered to spy on the phone of the
organization's founder Luca Casarini through the suspected use
of 'Graphite'.
Mediterranea Saving Humans said it had received an official
communication from Meta, which manages the WhatsApp chat
service, informing Casarini that his cell phone "had been
violated in a high-level spyware operation, through the use of a
software described as among the most sophisticated in the
world".
Sources said last Friday that at least three people at
Mediterranea - perhaps as many as four - were notified that
their devices had been compromised.
The editor-in-chief of online investigative news outlet Fanpage,
Francesco Cancellato, was also among the victims in Italy.
Fanpage last year spurred controversy with fly-on-the-wall
videos from the youth section of Premier Giorgia Meloni's
rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) in which the young members
were heard voicing allegedly neo-Fascist, neo-Nazi and
antisemitic views.
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