Hungary’s Interior Ministry may have wiretapped journalists and NGO groups

There is reason to believe that Hungary’s Ministry of Interior or an affiliated agency may be listening in on the conversations of opposition journalists and people associated with NGOs. Journalists from national opposition publications like HVG and 168 Óra have reported concerns that their phones may have been tapped. Specialists in the field of wiretaps confirmed that this is almost certainly the case. The targeted journalists and civil society activists are all reporting the same phenomenon. When they speak on the phone, their own words are re-played to them through what appears to be a recording, sometimes multiple times.

For instance, Tamás Szele, who had organized protests in Kossuth Square and who is known as an opposition columnist, reported that on numerous occasions when speaking with his wife, he would be carrying on his conversation, but his wife would hear repeated consecutively his last two or three sentences.

As well, a journalist at HVG reported to the paper’s editors that while speaking with an opposition politician on his cell phone, the connection would cut out and during this time his phone would replay the last minute or two of the conversation.

Szabolcs Kerék-Bárczy, a former politician of the Democratic Coalition (DK) and Benedek Jávor, a Member of the European Parliament with the Párbeszéd party, all reported experiencing similar situations. Two years ago, Mr. Jávor was on the phone with civil liberties lawyer Tivadar Hüttl. The phone connection began to cut out and then suddenly began replaying the last few minutes of their conversation. Mr. Hüttl contacted the Ministry of Interior to inquire if they had been monitoring their conversations. The Ministry responded by saying that they had “not engaged in any collection of data that contravenes the law.” In contrast to the Ministry of Defence, which flatly denied that these individuals were targets of investigation or wiretapping, the Ministry of Interior offered no such denial.

Mr. Jávor is best known for focusing on Hungary’s partnership with Russia to expand the nuclear plant in Paks, and the MEP is a vociferous critic of these plans. A national security source told HVG that Mr. Jávor is indeed “a targeted individual” and that it is not only Hungarian operatives who are monitoring him.

A screen capture from the film: Az ügynök élete (Life of an Agent).

A key question is why targets of wiretapping would be allowed to detect such tell-tale signs that their phones have been tapped? One explanation is that agents want the targets to know or suspect that such an investigation is on-going. A probably more likely scenario is that there is a software glitch in the system. Another possibility is that government agencies have outsourced these tasks to private security companies, which also means that these activities may be happening “informally” and without proper documentation or formal approval.

When the Ministry of Interior was contacted this week by HVG, the Ministry noted that it, as well as the Special Service for National Security (Nemzetbiztonsági Szakszolgálat) and the Constitution Protection Office (Alkotmányvédelmi Hivatal) would “in no way comment on this hearsay or on specific cases.”

HVG reminded its readers that in 2016, László Majtényi–president of a research institute funded by George Soros called the Eötvös Károly Közpolitikai Intézet–found an unusual physical device in his office that could be used to wiretap telephones. When Interior Minister Sándor Pintér was asked about this situation, the minister replied that “he was not aware” that agencies under his purview would have been monitoring the Institute.

Depending on the nature and purpose of the wiretapping, Hungarian law requires that this must be either approved by a judge or by the Minister of Justice. With such approval, cell phone providers in Hungary are required to cooperate with the relevant agencies. But if such work is “outsourced” to any number of private security firms in Hungary, one wonders about whether due process is followed.

 

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