The Politics of Audio-visual Leaks

 

PM Shehbaz Sharif was catapulted to power in the wake of a controversial no-confidence – motion against the former PM Imran Khan's government. His five month rule has falsfied many myths about him, the most prominent among them about how efficient an administrater he is. 

Besides the corruption charges against him and the run away inflation that his rule has plunged the country into, there are a series of audio tapes, leaked by the hidden forces, or perhaps by himself to achieve certain political ends . One such audio leak is about his role in the illegal import of electricity plants for Maryam Nawaz' son-in-law's business enterprise. 

Sometime back, a Tweet  criticizing former PM Imran Khan regarding  an alleged conversation between Asif Ali Zardari and property tycoon Malik Riaz was leaked on social media.It was believed that the video was leaked by Shehbaz through Maryam's notorious dirty video network.    How are these audio and video clips made?

Pegasus is a spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group that can be covertly installed on mobile phones (and other devices) running most versions of iOS and Android phones. As of 2022, Pegasus was capable of reading text messages, tracking calls, collecting passwords, location tracking, accessing the target device's microphone and camera, and harvesting information from apps. 

 The spyware is named after Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology. It is a Trojan horse computer virus that can be sent "flying through the air" to infect cell phones.

Pegasus was discovered in August 2016 after a failed installation attempt on the iPhone of a human rights activist led to an investigation revealing details about the spyware, its abilities, and the security vulnerabilities it exploited. The spyware has been used for surveillance of anti-regime activists, journalists, and political leaders from several nations around the world

 In July 2021, the investigation initiative Pegasus Project, along with an in-depth analysis by Amnesty International, reported that Pegasus was still being widely used against high-profile targets. 

According to an analysis by the German newspaper Die Zeit, many prominent persons have been targeted through the spyware. 

 Indian PM Modi’s government has used Pegasus to spy on his opposition leaders, union ministers, journalists, administrators such as India’s election commissioner, and minority leaders. 

Reportedly, Former PM Nawaz Sharif used Pegasus to spy on his political opponents, including Imran Khan, as well as civil and military bureaucrats. 

Pegasus is classified as a weapon that, on the face of it, is exported to the other governments only after clearance from the Israeli government. The spyware was cleared for export to the government of India after the meeting between PM Modi and the former Israeli PM Netanyahu when the two of them met in Israel during Modi’s official visit to Israel in July 2017. If the Pegasus software were used to snoop on Imran Khan, it was most probably provided by the Modi government to Nawaz Sharif. 

In the past, Israel had been stealing cutting-edge military technologies and materials, not only from France, Switzerland, and Belgium but also from the United States. During these Israeli theft operations, all these countries looked the other way while the Israelis got away with the targeted material, equipment, and blueprints.  

  Peter Ostrovsky, a rogue Mossad agent, in his book “The Other Side of Deception,” mentions how the United States allows Israel to steal military technology from the American companies. Like many other shady Israeli companies, NSO Group, the Israeli front company that markets the Pegasus spyware, had teamed up with Francisco Partners, an American private equity firm that focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services and processes. 

 Having said that, what is new in the revelations about the Pegasus scam? Governments the world over, without any differentiation between the First, the Second,  the Third, and the Fourth World countries have been indulging in spying on their political rivals and the bureaucrats whose loyalties were considered circumspect by their bosses. This was done and is still being done with impunity by the rulers of as wide a range of countries as India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, to name a few. Then why do newspapers like America's Washington Post and the Israeli Haaretz have to disclose these reprehensible spying operations years after they were conducted?

 Those who have read George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” would know the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon. 

The novel symbolizes the events leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. George Orwell, the author who coined the phrase "Big Brother is watching you", used it as an allegory to intense surveillance by the secret services. In the novel, Big Brother is the supreme ruler of Oceania, the leader of the Party, an accomplished war hero, a master inventor and philosopher, and the original instigator of the revolution that brought the Party to power. The Party uses the image of Big Brotherto instilll a sense of loyalty and fear in the populace.  

So, the United States, the quintessential Big Brother, and Israel, the American poodle, are signalling to the governments around the world how vulnerable and helpless they are against these global bullies. Such disclosures also help the US to put its "Strategic Allies" like India, and the non-compliant rulers like Imran Khan in their place.

 

Saleem Akhtar Malik

1 June 2022

The author is a Pakistan Army veteran who regularly writes on national and international affairs, defence, military history, and military technology. His talks on these subjects are aired on his YouTube Channel "The Observation Post". His blog "Sam1953.blogspot.com" features his articles. Tweets @saleemakhtar53.