Bill calling for national security strategy gets ministerial committee backing
High-level body also gives the nod to extension of law blocking Al Jazeera and expansion of police surveillance of criminal suspects’ computers
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
The government on Sunday gave its backing to bills requiring it to adopt a national security strategy, extending emergency regulations allowing for the censorship of foreign media, and allowing the police to secretly spy on suspects’ computers using secret warrants.
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation’s approval means that the government will lend its support to the bills as they go to the Knesset, where each must pass three readings to become law.
Establishing a national security strategy
The first bill, sponsored by MKs Yuli Edelstein (Likud) and Gadi Eisenkot (National Unity), would require the National Security Council to formulate a national security strategy in consultation with the ministries of foreign affairs and defense, intelligence agencies and other relevant government bureaus.
Edelstein currently serves as the chairman of the powerful Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Eisenkot is a former IDF chief of staff who previously served as a non-voting observer in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s now-defunct war cabinet.
The proposed strategy document — which would have to be approved by the government within 150 days of its formulation and be updated regularly — would identify Israel’s national security challenges and establish its strategic goals, and provide a “critical assessment” of the country’s existing national security strategy.
In its explanatory notes, the bill’s authors assert that a lack of an explicit security doctrine in favor of unwritten rules has damaged the country’s preparations and readiness in the face of threats, paving the way for the events of October 7, 2023.
A discussion of another bill, aimed at establishing a new intelligence oversight body directly under the authority of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was postponed by the committee until next week.
Extending the ‘Al Jazeera law’
The committee also approved a bill extending the so-called Al Jazeera law until May 31, 2025.
Passed as a temporary measure in April, the law gives the government powers to prevent foreign news networks from operating in Israel if they are deemed by the security services to be harming national security.
Following the law’s passage, police seized Al Jazeera’s broadcasting equipment from its Jerusalem offices, pulling the Qatari news channel off the air in Israel.
While the current law is slated to expire at the end of the month, lawmakers have also taken steps to make it permanent, voting to approve a preliminary reading of a bill turning it into permanent legislation in June.
Secret surveillance
The Ministerial Committee on Legislation also backed a bill sponsored by MK Zvika Fogel of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party allowing the police to spy on suspects’ computers using secret warrants.
According to the bill, district court judges will be empowered, at the request of senior police officials, to issue secret warrants for the intrusion into a computer system belonging to a suspect if there is reason to believe that “such a search is required for the detection, investigation or prevention of a serious crime, or for the detection or apprehension of criminals who have committed such an offense, and that the purpose of the search will be frustrated if the search is conducted openly.”
The order, which will last 30 days, will only be granted if the offense in question is punishable by 10 or more years in prison, and the court may order limitations on the use of the data collected.
Police can currently wiretap phones and listen in to data in-transit, including phone calls and text messages. What they cannot currently do is extract preexisting, or “at-rest,” data out of computers or mobile devices, explained Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, a privacy expert and senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
Altshuler argued that efforts to provide the police with the tools “to infringe citizens’ privacy” should be advanced via a government proposal overseen by the Justice Ministry, and noted that the current bill is being advanced as a private members’ bill because the government has been unable to reach understandings with ministry officials and the attorney general.
In a statement welcoming the bill’s approval by the high-level committee, Otzma Yehudit chairman Itamar Ben Gvir, the national security minister, accused Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara of preventing police “from using these very essential tools for eradicating crime,” while Fogel called the bill “an essential tool in the fight against crime and terrorism.”
