2019 & now, Govt ducks key question: did it buy Pegasus?

What difference do 20 months make? Not much, when it comes to explaining the Government’s stand on the Pegasus spyware and its use.

In Lok Sabha Monday, Ashwani Vaishnaw, the new Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, effectively, echoed what his predecessor Ravi Shankar Prasad had said on November 28, 2019. Prasad was replying in Rajya Sabha weeks after The Indian Express reported on WhatsApp’s disclosure that journalists and human rights activists were targets of surveillance by operators using Pegasus.

Both Prasad then and Vaishnaw now ducked the key question raised by member after member from the Opposition: did the Government or its agencies get Pegasus and, if yes, what were the terms of its use? Both, instead, quoted sections of the law to reiterate the claim that all electronic interception follows due process.