Liberals in EU parliament seek inquiry into abuse of spyware

By VANESSA GERA
Associated Press

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — European Parliament lawmakers have called for a committee to investigate rights abuses by European Union governments using powerful spyware produced by Israel’s NSO Group. Renew Europe, a liberal political group, said Wednesday that the use of the software to break into the phones of government critics is “undermining democracy.” It made its appeal following reports that NSO Group’s Pegasus software has been used hack the smartphones of opposition politicians, lawyers, journalists and critics of the right-wing governments in Hungary and Poland. The Polish Senate, meanwhile, approved the formation of a committee to investigate evidence that three critics of the country’s right-wing government were hacked with the spyware.