Former head of SKW about surveillance of Pegasus: this is shameful, but this is unfortunately also happening today
This is shameful, but this is unfortunately also happening today – this is how the former head of SKW, General Maciej Materka, answered the question of the PEGASUS Investigation Commission about the leakage of data from the telephone of the Chief of Staff of the KO in 2019. But, he added, “this is not information for the heads of services to check media reports.”
On Monday, the Sejm inquiry commission for Pegasus questioned General Maciej Materka, a former head of the Military Counterintelligence Service. During the free statement, Materka talked about security issues. He reminded about attempts to interfere in Polish elections foreign, which the services informed. He also pointed out an example of burning the hall at ul. Marywilska in Warsaw, which was to be inspired by the Russian services.
“Today we must say that Poland, at this point, is needed in ten enigmatic pegasus and the most modern systems, which they are to capture and prevent committing crimes. (…) We must have the most modern systems as possible” – emphasized Materka.
He added during the part of the meeting cannot speak of the details of the operational work of the once subordinate services. He noted that all the controls ordered during his bosses were ordered on the basis of the Court's consent, including the consent of the Supreme Court, which you can read about in the media and everyone knew perfectly well what the scope of control is. ” He added that with the current development of technology “we cannot keep up”.
The chairwoman of the commission Magdalena Sroka (PSL-TD) emphasized that there is “full agreement as to the question that the services in Poland should use the latest tools”. However, as she noted, “they should be purchased in accordance with the law.” And also, she said, they should “not pose a danger for people who use such tools.” Materka denied that he took part in conversations regarding the purchase of this type of systems. He emphasized that he became the head of SKW in 2018 and found out about their existence.
“The information was from the minister coordinator (Mariusz Kamiński), this is one path, while previously information about such systems that can process the information in this way, was from officers,” he said. “I treated it as an obligation. Anyway, today I do not change my mind and this is the boss's duty: to provide the most modern solutions that are currently as” – he added.
The former head of SKW admitted that there were doubts about the use of Pegasus -like systems “as a modern solution that can be risked.” However, the decision was made after the analysis.
“The finale is that the boss is responsible, but the boss does not examine every technical thread. The legal, logistics and technical services that dealt with it were studying such a system,” he said. He added that the system was already used by other services at that time. “Nobody, at any level, nobody informed me as a boss, but also at various bodies in which we were, about the threats to this system, which is now talked about in public space,” he pointed out.
The vice -chairman of the commission Marcin Bosacki (KO) asked if Maciej Materka knew that the Pegasus system had no accreditation. The former head of SKW said that this topic has never appeared. “I was not interested in this at the level of the head of the service, who decided to join this system, because I as the head of the service was not a gestor of this system,” he said
The decision to use the Pegasus system was made in 2019. Materka was asked by Bosacki if he was concerned that “during the election campaign, the survivors were probably used on TVP.” It is about information obtained from Krzysztof Brejza's phone, chief of staff of the KO before the parliamentary elections.
“Unfortunately, I did not have knowledge, first of all, what it is. (…) It is very shameful, it happens, it happens today. Information about Orlen, Daniel Obajtek appeared, or the last stories related to even Karol Nawrocki, so this is not information that it is clear, for the bosses of the services, that they are now to check media reports or information is from the service.”
The interrogation of Maciej Materka lasted about two hours. Later, the rest of the interrogation began during the closed part of the meeting.
The PEGASUS inquiry commission examines the legality, correctness and purposefulness of activities undertaken using this software, including By the government, special services and the police from November 2015 to November 2023, the Commission is also to determine who was responsible for the purchase of Pegasus and similar tools for Polish authorities.
Pegasus is a system that was created by the Israeli company NSO Group to fight terrorism and organized crime. With the help of Pegasus, you can not only eavesdrop on conversations from an infected smartphone, but also access to other data stored in it, e.g. emails, photos or video recordings, as well as cameras and microphones.
As the Canadian Citizen Lab established, the politicians of the opposition at that time were being underveted. One of the first people to be informed was Krzysztof Brejza, who in the parliamentary election in 2019 served as the chief of the election staff of the church (PAP)
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