Ministers support legislation allowing police to secretly access suspects’ computers
Otzma Yehudit-backed bill written so as to prevent law enforcement from using spyware tools against politicians suspected of corruption
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 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, but not on the devices of politicians suspected of corruption.
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 Ministerial Committee for Legislation’s approval means that the government will lend its support to the bill as it goes to the Knesset, where it must pass three readings to become law.
The orders, 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.
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.”
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, said Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, a privacy expert and senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
A Justice Ministry report published in late 2022 largely rejected allegations that the Israel Police had used spyware to illegally hack the phones of dozens of private citizens, finding that officers acted largely in accordance with the law and did not use such spyware without legal oversight.
Nevertheless, the report noted that police repeatedly exceeded the bounds of cyber warrants they had received to hack into phones, and received information that should not have been available to them.
Since then, the use of spyware by police has been largely frozen while lawmakers work to create a legal basis for its deployment. Meanwhile, the Justice Ministry has been working on its own legislation to reauthorize the use of such technology.
Opposing corruption probes
However, members of the cabinet have expressed opposition to any legislation allowing spyware to be used against politicians in cases of suspected corruption, a demand that has held up any progress on passing a government bill on the matter.
The text of the bill backed by ministers on Monday, which echoes that of the frozen government proposal, limits its application to crimes that carry a penalty of 10 years or over in prison, assuaging politicians’ concerns as corruption offenses are not punishable by such lengthy sentences, Shwartz Altshuler said.
She added that any effort to provide the police with the tools “to infringe citizens’ privacy” should be part of an official government proposal strictly 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.
Probing police use of spyware
In September, the Attorney General’s Office asked the High Court of Justice to annul the government’s decision to establish a commission of inquiry to probe the alleged illicit use of spyware by law enforcement agencies, insisting that the commission is acting in contravention of the law.
The Attorney General Office’s chief concern is that the commission is being used as a platform to discredit the handling of aspects of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal investigation for corruption.
In response, Justice Minister Yariv Levin accused the Attorney General’s Office has a conflict of interest in the matter.
The commission was formed in August 2023 to examine the alleged illicit use of spyware by law enforcement bodies against Israeli citizens and government officials.
Secret evidence
The Knesset National Security Committee is currently debating another bill allowing police to search suspects’ computers, sponsored by Fogel, the committee’s chairman.
The controversial bill aims to allow district court judges to impose restrictions on citizens’ freedom of movement and expression on the basis of secret evidence “in order to prevent serious damage to a person’s safety or property.”
It is intended to serve, say its backers, as a two-year temporary measure to enable law enforcement to deal with “a significant increase in the activity of organized crime in Israel,” especially in Arab communities.
If it is passed, the courts would be allowed to impose measures based on intelligence briefings by police that include “confidential intelligence material, visible evidence and any other material regarding the assessment that a person is active in a criminal organization,” along with the level of threat posed by the individual.
The bill would allow police to deviate from the prevailing rules of evidence in presentations to the court, which its drafters admitted was “an unusual tool in which a judicial order is used to violate the rights of an individual, due to a forward-looking concern and in the absence of sufficient incriminating evidence regarding acts attributed to him in the past.”
Among the options given to judges by the law are limiting a suspect’s time outside their home, prohibiting them from traveling to certain locations or communicating with certain people, stopping them from driving, and prohibiting travel abroad.
Moreover, police would be allowed to check the residences or vehicles of those subject to such orders, access their computers or even search their persons.
Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.
