AG asks police chief to freeze counter-incitement activities, after reports of illicit surveillance

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara urges the commissioner of police to immediately halt the activities of law enforcement’s counter-incitement department, following reports that the fledgling body was illicitly tracking ordinary citizens’ social media activity.

In a letter sent by her office to police chief Danny Levy, the attorney general says the body’s reported activities amount to “proactive surveillance of people on social media, without a sufficient evidentiary basis provided.”

This surveillance, her letter claims, raises real concern of “unjustified harm to human rights and free expression” by police.

The letter is sent in wake of a Kan public broadcaster report claiming the officer in charge of the department urged officers to send him names of people that “bother” them, with the goal of monitoring their social media and potentially launching investigations into their posts.

The report includes a screenshot WhatsApp message sent by Ch. Supt. Udi Ronen, who heads the department, in which he writes: “Send me targets and names that interest or bother or are known to you. We will see what and if we can do anything against them from the perspective of social media or more.”

“Just send every name that comes to mind, what do you care? Maybe we’ll find an interesting way to take him down and help,” the message continues.

Before National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir took office, probes into incitement were typically conducted by the police’s investigations and intelligence division, led by Deputy Commissioner Boaz Blatt.

Ben Gvir has since created the incitement division, subordinate to the deputy police commissioner, to investigate incitement suspicions.