There is growing concern that Europe, so proud of its privacy protections and rule of law, is rampant with listening devices and espionage at a moment when its democracies are being threatened by Russian aggression. So much so, the European Union is regularly checking devices.
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— Marc Lacey, Managing Editor
Investigations into spyware should now “involve a check of the phones of all politicians and top level officials,” Sophie in ’t Veld, the chairwoman of the European Parliament’s special committee on spyware, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “To get a full picture of the spying activity by governments.”
Greece has now vaulted to the top of the worry list. Allies of Mr. Mitsotakis, a staunch defender of Ukraine, have argued that the scandal is not just a threat to Greek stability, but to the common cause against Russia.
“If I were Mr. Putin, I would be very happy if the governments that were so opposed to Russia would fall, ” said Adonis Georgiadis, a government minister and the vice president of Mr. Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party. While he stressed he was not blaming Russia for the hacking, he added that Russia had exerted influence in Greece before, “So if they did it in the past. Why not do it now?”
Turkey, too, he said, “could be” behind it all.
Mr. Mitsotakis, in his speech, also talked cryptically of the possibility of “shady forces outside Greece” working “to destabilize the country.”
Opponents say the government’s insinuations amount to a desperate smoke screen to avoid the obvious issue — that it had gotten caught spying on its own citizens and political rivals.
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