Thread by @EddieDu5

» Modi accused of treason by opposition over India spyware disclosures | India | The Guardian theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/…

The stories, published in the Guardian and in partner media outlets around the world on Sunday and Monday, revealed details of hundreds of verified Indian phone numbers that appear in leaked records of numbers.

In a statement, the opposition Congress party accused the Modi government of being the “deployer and executor” of a “spying racket”.

The allegations about the use of the malware, known as Pegasus, were published on Sunday as part of a global investigation by the Washington Post, the Guardian and 14 other media organisations, including The Wire in India.
bbc.com/news/world-asi…

Pegasus infects iPhones and Android devices, allowing operators to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones.

Roula Khalaf, who became the first female editor in the newspaper’s history last year, was selected as a potential target throughout 2018.
theguardian.com/world/2021/jul…

Her number is included in a leaked list of mobile phone numbers selected for possible surveillance by clients of NSO, an Israeli firm that manufactures spyware and sells it to governments.

Analysis of the leaked data suggests that Khalaf’s phone was selected as a possible target by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). At the time, Khalaf was a deputy editor at the FT.

Reporters whose numbers appear in the data range from local freelancers, such as the Mexican journalist Cecilio Pineda Birto, who was murdered one month after his phone was selected, through to prize-winning investigative reporters, editors and media executives.

Thakurta was hacked in 2018 while he was working on an investigation into how Modi's BJP government was using Facebook to systematically spread disinformation among Indian people online.