Cabinet Undersecretary Alfredo
Mantovano told Lower House Speaker Lorenzo Fontana in a letter
on Tuesday that the government has already made public all
declassified information over the 'Graphite' military-grade
hacking software of Israeli company Paragon Solutions.
The letter said the Paragon case was discussed by Parliament's
COPASIR security committee, which oversees Italy's intelligence
agencies, and the Minister for Relations with Parliament Luca
Ciriani had provided to lawmakers "the only information that
could be divulged to the public" during a question time session
at the Lower House on February 12.
Every other aspect of the case is classified and can only be
discussed by the government within COPASIR and not reported
directly to parliament, the letter said.
Last week, Ciriani denied reports that Paragon Solutions had
terminated its client relationship with Italy amid a furore over
the alleged illegal use of its hacking software to spy on
journalists and activists in many countries, including Italy.
"Like all intelligence agencies in the world, the Italian
services have for many years made use of tools such as those
produced and supplied by the company Paragon Solutions in the
name of national security in order to combat terrorist or
criminal organizations," Ciriani told a question time session in
the Lower House.
He said the spy software was used with "respect of the
Constitution and of the laws in the strictest way", after
reports alleged that the company, which is reported to only work
with state entities, had terminated its contract with Rome.
Migrant-rescue NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans founder Luca
Casarini and the editor-in-chief of online investigative news
outlet Fanpage, Francesco Cancellato, were reported to be among
the victims in Italy.
Meanwhile parliamentary sources said on Tuesday that the whips
of centre-left opposition parties also asked Fontana to
"urgently" convene a conference of the presidents of
parliamentary groups to discuss the government's "lack of
response" to questions posed by lawmakers on the Paragon case.
The failure to further report to parliament "constitutes a grave
wound to the principle of transparency and to the function of
control which Parliament has over the government's actions", the
opposition whips wrote in the letter to Fontana, according to
the sources.
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