PASOK chief takes recourse to Council of State over wiretapping

PASOK-Movement for Change chief Nikos Androulakis has filed a complaint with the country’s highest administrative court challenging a provision that prohibits Greece’s privacy watchdog from informing people when their communications have been put under surveillance by the National Intelligence Service (EYP).

Androulakis, who discovered an attempt to tap his private mobile phone with the malicious Predator spyware in the spring and exposed EYP’s role in the affair in the summer, is seeking to compel the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy (ADAE) to divulge information about the tapping.

He is also asking the Council of State to review whether legislation permitting such information to be treated as confidential for reasons of national security violates the Greek Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

In a statement on his petition to the court, Androulakis, who was a member of the European Parliament ⎼ and still is ⎼ when the attempt to tap his phone was made, said that the law allowing such information not to be divulged should have been abolished in August, when the wiretapping affair was made public.

“The government had the opportunity to do this in the legislative act it issued reforming the operating framework of EYP. But it did not. It also had the opportunity to uphold the relevant amendment submitted by PASOK-Movement for Change on September 29, 2022. It avoided doing so again,” he said, accusing the government of “instrumentalizing” the privilege of confidentiality.