Gov’t Assures Citizens Nothing To Fear From Police Phone-Spying If You Have The Right Politics

Police will exempt from their initial presumption of guilt anyone whose demonstrated political leanings fall to the left of center, with the definition of “center” relegated to the supervising officer’s discretion.

Jerusalem, January 18 – Israeli authorities sought to assuage concerns today, over law enforcement’s use of software that can hack into private communications on mobile devices, that robust procedures guarantee the use of the technology only for court-approved instances unless the software’s users really, really feel like it, and besides, nobody with the correct opinions has anything to worry about.

Israel Police spokeswoman Kori Atzfonit issued a pronouncement Tuesday morning that the organization’s monitoring of chat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp content and chat messages, via software from a company called NSO, will only target people who pose a genuine threat as determined by courts, or by police commanders who suspect you of wrongthink.

“As long as you have the right politics, you should be fine,” she emphasized. “Nobody who has anything to hide should be concerned about this. And I will say that anyone objecting to this on supposed grounds of privacy or whatever, that itself is grounds for suspicion. If you weren’t afraid you were doing something illegal, why would you be scared of us looking through all you communications?”

She also noted that in the interest of efficiency, police will exempt from their initial presumption of guilt anyone whose demonstrated political leanings fall to the left of center, with the definition of “center” relegated to the supervising officer’s discretion. “There are literally millions of chats to monitor per day,” she explained. “We must operate intelligently. Later on, if necessary, we can go back and examine the behavior and rhetoric of those who respect the firm rule of law, but even then, we have latitude when it comes to recommending a case for prosecution or just closing a case without charges if an actual court case would prove politically inconvenient for the bureaucratic, unelected elite such as the prosecutor’s office and the judiciary.”

Journalists who have spent time in Communist China and similar repressive regimes shared their experiences with the public to help the latter grow accustomed to the situation. “Just assume anything you say, write, download, upload, or click on is under surveillance,” suggested Jerusalem Post correspondent Enkay Vidi. “Keep any anti-authoritarian, or just anti-authorities, sentiments to yourself. That is, if you care about your career, family, access to services, freedom of movement, that sort of thing. A few restrictions on other freedoms are a small price to pay for the security of knowing no one around you has called our dear leaders any funny names.”

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