Polish opposition duo hacked with NSO spyware
apnews.com
apnews.com
"On November 25, the Times of Israel reported that the Israeli government has banned the sales of Pegasus to autocratic regimes, as well as to the governments of Poland and Hungary. The list of countries to which Israeli surveillance companies can sell their spyware has been reduced from 102 to 37. Among others, the blacklisted states now include the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco. In the EU, it is Poland and Hungary."
(Eavesdropping advocate is illegal under Polish law.)
This may sound a little paranoid but I always treat declarations like this with a grain of salt.
What are they?
So I guess Poland and Hungary are not autocratic regimes, from Israel's POV.
It is almost a tradition at this moment - cases are rising? Quick, arrest him!
Okay, on a serious note - this won't change anything. Poland is very polarised right now politically. PiS voters won't care as long as the state gives them money, and the rest already won't vote for them no matter what.
It looks like a fair number of people applied for settled status in the UK just in case they wanted to use it to work part of the year here.
Brexit is bad but it is worse for native British people than those with EU passports.
The Brits that I know in various European countries have been dealt with quite civilly, as opposed to some of the people that I know that had moved to the UK where they find themselves suddenly without rights after being solid contributors to that society, sometimes for decades.
What makes you write this particular sentence?
This is a stretch by any measure. I'm an estern european in UK. Once I applied for ILR(Indefinite leave to remain) I can go and come with 0 problems. Not sure what "without rights" you are talking about but brexit doesn't bother me in any way.
We have plenty at work that arrived in uk around 2-3 years ago and they continue their lives without problems, go home for holidays and so on. Some work for us as self-empleyer/contractors. Not even those have any issues.
In theory, a Pole who applied for and got "settled status" in the UK can move around to work just as they could before Brexit. I have no idea how well applying for this works though.
So, regarding Poland, instead of using terms like 'left-right', it makes more sense to use something like the Nolan Chart. This would make the current government of Poland closer to the area of "authoritarian," that is, restricting both economic and personal freedom.
In the case of the current ruling party, they certainly brand themselves as right-wing and they want to occupy the whole spectrum from the center to the right. However, their way of thinking in economic terms, their dislike of private business, their understanding of the function of the government and local government, of centralization, public vs private property etc. - all this is very much related to their experience of the past socialist regime. The reforms they are doing right now basically mean taking money from individual people running their own businesses and transferring them to the rest, creating one of the most weird taxation schemes Poland saw so far.
(For context: in Poland people who demonstrate the kind of political illiteracy displayed in the comment above generally vote for Konfederacja party, which can't be easily described in traditional categories due to how illiterate it is.)
If people want 500 zł monthly and are willing to sell themselves and the country for that - let them...
That being said... if you have a good job, like in IT, you're better off remaining in Poland. You just have to grit your teeth.
Edit: Actually they have already frozen 35 bn Euro. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/22/brussels-launc...
I'd say that's what the previous government missed completely: that the old state of affairs simply didn't work for many people.
It's all financed by debt and inflation.
There are some social programs that make no sense, like coal mining ones (we're at the point where I'd vote to have current coal miner wages frozen in exchange for closing the mines - i.e. everyone currently working underground would continue to get their last yearly wages till pension for not working at all)
And the budget is crushed by all sorts fraud and mismanagement, with vanity projects funneling money to people connected to Law&Justice party (examples: creating new passage between Vitula Lagoon and Baltic sea; new power generation block in Ostrołęka - currently demolished before it ever got finished; Centralny Port Komunikacyjny - a giant useless airport without reason to exist, and yet nearly no work is being done other than funnelling more and more money to friends; etc. etc.)
Besides, you can close down WAW and use the land to expand the city. You also don't have to expand other airports, which are close to cities and cause massive noise pollutions.
Berlin is a corner case of national capital that is in aviation terms in the boonies. Frankfurt Auf Mein and Munich are big hubs because that's where Lufthansa has logistical bases. The 2000km distance doesn't do anything, that's a short hop for airliners. That means that Berlin will do profitable important routes direct... which happen to be mostly to airline hubs, with few exceptions.
So there's no reason for people from neighbouring countries to use it, it require artificially breaking other airports in Poland to have even a sliver of reason (easily debunked by anyone with idea of state of polish airports). It's whole existence happened because one man had an unresearched biased idea and the party jumps at his whim.
I reckon you're an avid supporter of PiS?
I do not support any party
The connection graph of airlines is based both on where people are, and what logistical bases they can get, and a) LOT doesn't have long range network capable of driving more traffic than Okęcie can sustain b) no other long-range airline is going to operate long range flights from CPK
However, on top of that, you have a lot of simply bad management, and also ridiculous amounts of fraud by ruling party politicians. This means that a lot of money is leaking from the budget in various ways into pockets of people associated with current government, and another (possibly bigger) chunk of money is lost by mismanagement - including things as simple as replacing experienced people with nepotism-pushed ones who then fail to process documents for EU funds.
This year we ended up with huge fines (increasing daily), with direct cause being continued operation of Turów surface mine. What is often missed in discussion is that Czech Republic didn't want it closed or fined - they requested that in exchange for continued operation, Poland funds waterworks necessary to ensure nearby villages & towns on Czech side of border have access to potable water, as the mine caused considerable lowering of water table.
So rampant spending on often idiotic things, which also heavily goes into pockets of party nomenclature (so it doesn't even have the benefit of being "make work") results in considerable lack of funds in the budget...
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/the-doctrine-of...
"The fallacy comes in when you say, “Well, given that it’s all about spending imbalances, exchange rate policy has nothing to do with it.” This is what John Williamson of the Institute for International Economics once dubbed the Doctrine of Immaculate Transfer. (Uh-oh, Erick Erickson’s gonna come after me …) It’s a popular fallacy, especially at the WSJ, although I’m not sure if it rises to zombie status."
One can imagine an alternate universe in which Poland has been lead by progressives for the last 30 years, who make big investments in science research and education so that Poland came up to speed quickly on high-technology industries and so rapidly increased labor productivity. In that alternate universe, the government of Poland would be able to follow a policy of tight money, such that zloty would gain value against the euro. And of course, some of that happened, labor productivity increased. The zloty was 6 to 1 against the USA dollar in 1989 and then got to 2.5 to 1 around 2011 or 2012, before sinking again. One can imagine, in this alternate universe, Poland made such huge investments in science research and education that the zloty eventually got to be 1 to 1 with the USA dollar.
But that isn't what happened. Poland has been governed by center-right and far-right parties who've limited government involvement in the economy and who have avoided big bets on future investment, outside of infrastructure investments. So, as a practical matter, devaluing the currency, and accepting inflation, has been the most convenient way for the Polish government to keep unemployment down.
1. Keynesian stimulus. The government could stimulate demand, either by increasing the purchases where it is the final consumer (military, education spending) or it could give money to citizens so they can spend more. It's important that the increase in spending is not initially offset by tax increases, so this means the government has to take on debt.
2. Devalue the currency so as to help exports. This way you avoid taking on debt, instead you rely on increased money from exports to stimulate the economy. But here, instead of debt, you pay for the stimulus via inflation, as imported goods are now more expensive.
Keep in mind "increase exports" is relative to what your main trading partners are able to consume. The EU is the main trading partner for Poland. When the EU is in a deep recession, Poland's exports can be expected to fall, so "increasing exports" might only keep them at their previous rate (the rate that existed before the crisis).
Whatever you do, there is some cost. Either you take on debt or you take on inflation. There is no way out of the crisis that is completely free.
Basically they did the same as every wannabe authorithatian ever - pay people to love you and take over the country while they still do.
Is there concern this could impact Poland's NATO status in the long run? In the short run, of course not, it's strategically located. But in the long run, as values diverge, isn't there fear it could become untenable for a U.S. president to call for spilling American blood to protect such a country?
But relying on membership alone is plain stupid. If "spilling blood to protect such a country" becomes a problem, the response will degrade from actual help to some meaningless gestures. "We tried really hard to help them! Too bad our troops did not make it on time!"
NATO has nothing to do with values, though - what matters is where the US wants its Air Force bases.
The EU membership is in danger, not NATO. And if the EU wouldn't hope the next elections would fix that, Poland would have been thrown out already.
There are a couple of other authoritarian eastern block countries who are now encouraged by Poland, which will blow up to a full blown crisis if not handled immediately.
TBH, I'm kinda tired of this "PiS voters are state dependants" notion. Sure, it's heavily popular in rural religious east but there's also a certain urban demographic that's being underrepresented by other parties. I'm in the 25-30 yo bracket, Warsaw, BSc summa cum laude, three foreign languages, top 1% earner (which is not that hard to achieve in Poland working in modern tech). If I were to vote today, I'd either skip the vote or vote for PiS. Also got some like-minded friends. Anecdotal evidence, sure. It's also a case of "but all of my polls showed Hillary and Remain over Trump and Brexit".
It's mindblowing how skillful and cunning he was in avoiding any repercussions, including being freed without paying the bail. For an average person such problems would be beginning of an end, courts would cut off any appeals instantly. Gods are untouchable regardless of the side they are standing.
The only reason why he isn't on the side of PiS or Konfederacja is that he hates Kaczynski for personal reason. And vice versa.
That sounds more like the NSO is not sending them updates anymore, rather than that they got “banned”.
I guess they would probably have to stop being happy customers themselves first though…
Please check who is Mr. Giertych - and he is not a hero attorney fighting for the good of the people, he was involved in a rather unclear businesses, which are now investigated by the prosecution. Giertych got a lot of publicity when he managed to skillfully avoid interrogation - when Police arrived to transport him he was faking sickness.
To make things funnier, Giertych was a member of the far right wing of the currently ruling party (Law and Order), he was even a ministry of education at some point.
Right now he pretends to be persecuted by the government just in case he will be sentenced.
Ewa Wrzosek, on the other hand, is known from exactly one case: she started investigation to check if presidential election was "safe for the society" (because of covid, obviously). The crux here is that due to the deficiencies that Polish constitution has it didn't anticipated situation in which the election cannot happen, so there were no possible legal solution to avoid the election without destabilizing political system.
So, from the beginning, it was clear that Ms. Wrzosek action was a purely political demonstration (she was a well known critic of the government). Later she admitted that "probably everything was ok" , and "eventually investigation would have been cancelled, but why not double check" [1]...
Regardless if someone likes or not current Polish authorities (I am definitely not) the attempt to undermine the election and destabilize country by some prosecutor does not sound well.
[1] https://www.fakt.pl/wydarzenia/polityka/ewa-wrzosek-kim-jest...
Most people wouldn't call that "us vs them" though.
1) Giertych did not present any evidence that the current government infected his phone with Pegasus, he only says that in the media, always citing other media to avoid getting sued. He did publish what he claims is a report he received from Citizen Lab, here’s the pdf (in English): https://tvn24.pl/najnowsze/ix6ek8-Roman-Giertych_Targeting-M... The report claims his current phone contains evidence that his previous phone was infected. He did not send the old phone for inspection.
2) Wrzosek didn’t publish any evidence that her phone was infected – she just retwitted someone else’s twitt.
3) Both Wrzosek and Giertych are under investigation – Wrzosek has disciplinary charges for overstepping her competencies and failure to perform her duties as a prosecutor. I don’t know the details, but it’s about the 2020 presidential vote-by-mail elections. Giertych has criminal charges for money fraud, he was arrested in 2020, but a servile judge released him and others arrested with him, since then Giertych has been ignoring the Prosecutors Office, and is now being arrested for that.
4) The AP article claims Żaryn was vague – his name is Stanisław Żaryn, not ‘Stanislaw Zaryn’, he’s the spokesman for the minister-coordinator of special services (not ‘A Polish state security spokesman’ – ABW is controlled by the prime minister), and he wasn’t vague, he stated that surveillance is carried out by police, not by any special services, and in controlled manner – it requires written request by a court and permission from the public prosecutor general (police act, article 19), it’s not something that can be done on a whim, he denied that special services are used for political fighting, and wrote that due to legal restrictions he cannot say whether specific methods and forms of operational control are used in Poland. The statement is here: https://twitter.com/StZaryn/status/1473210690676695043
5) Giertych isn’t known for being a lawyer, but for being a politician – in 1989 he recreated the Młodzież Wszechpolska (All-Polish Youth, the pre-war MW was the largest university student organization, during the war it merged with ONR and ceased to exist after the Warsaw Uprising. Giertych’s MW has around 1000 members), and was one of the leaders of Liga Polskich Rodzin, a right-wing political party that had some MPs in early 2000s, and was in coalition with PIS during the first PIS government, Giertych was then the vice prime minister and the minister of education. That government ended being a minority government, and when it was certain it cannot be saved, LPR left the coalition. After the 2007 elections LPR didn’t get a single MP, so Giertych quit the party, returned to being a lawyer and started representing people associated with the Platforma Obywatelska party (including Tusk and his son). It’s funny that the same people who back then were calling him a Nazi (and not without a reason) are now working with him and claiming he is a saint.
6) Both Giertych and Wrzosek are working for political party that used special services against journalists – in 2009 sent ABW after Cezary Gmyz from Rzeczpospolita and Bogdan Rymanowski from TVN, and in 2014 sent ABW to break into the headquarters of Wprost. Waldemar Pawlak, who was the minister-coordinator of special services in the PO-PSL government told a journalist that everyone is being spied on and that journalists should get used to it.
7) PIS didn’t win the 2019 elections by a slim margin – the election was won by United Right, an alliance of which PIS is a member, and United Right received 43,6% of the votes, while the Civic Coalition (technically PO and Nowoczesna, but in reality it’s just PO) received only 27,4%.
8) Sikorski wasn’t recorded on purpose – it happened in 2014, the staff of a restaurant called ‘Sowa i Przyjaciele’, where prominent PO politicians were meeting, placed a small recording device under the table, and Sikorski was one of the politicians that got recorded. The staff eventually sold the recordings to Wprost, Wprost published it (this is what got them raided), and, well, it started a huge scandal that eventually led to the fall of the PO-PSL government, and completely devastated both parties. If anyone is interested, the Wikipedia has a good article on the scandal (in Polish): https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afera_pods%C5%82uchowa_w_Polsc...
9) The prosecutor applied for Giertych’s arrest because Giertych has ignored over 20 summons for questioning. He’s a suspect in Polnord case – Polnord is a large development company that has been bought by a Cyprian fund called Hanapeta, which was involved in the Cum-Ex scandal, and it’s CEO has been arrested in France in 2020. Giertych’s law firm worked for Polnord and received some suspicious money transfers.
10) The name of the city where Wrzosek was sent is Śrem, not Srem, and I don’t believe she never heard about it – it’s one of the oldest cities in Poland, it’s fairly well known, and was a royal city in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Also moving judges and prosecutors can be done only with their permission.