“When Tusk produces fake news about the alleged surveillance of his family, it is worth recalling what the truth about the Pegasus system and its use by Polish services really looked like,” wrote PiS MEP Maciej Wąsik on X. The politician referred to an extensive post he made last year.
An indictment against former Deputy Minister of Justice Michał Woś, the questioning of Law and Justice (PiS) chairman Jarosław Kaczyński, and reports by Onet about the alleged surveillance of the Prime Minister’s close relatives, at the midway point of the coalition government’s term, the campaign against the opposition is intensifying, seemingly meant to replace discussion about the achievements of the past two years.
Maciej Wąsik, a PiS MEP, protested against Tusk’s attempt to drag his relatives into a political game. He recalled a series of his own posts from March 2024 concerning “the truth about the Pegasus system and its use by Polish security services.”
He pointed out that in 2016, the services were defenseless against criminals using encrypted communicators, which is why “it was necessary to take action so that Polish services could effectively conduct operational surveillance and combat crime.”
He cited 2021 as the year when the services carried out around 200 operational surveillances using Pegasus.
“Half of them were conducted by the Internal Security Agency (ABW), mainly by counterintelligence. In other years, the number of operational surveillances conducted with the system did not exceed 100,”
he reported.
He denied that Pegasus was a tool for tracking politicians. “The system was used for operational surveillance of individuals suspected of serious crimes,” the statement reads.
He also reminded that the use of Pegasus was only possible with the knowledge and consent of the prosecutor’s office and the court.
“Taps were never used without the legally required approvals. The justifications for the applications were very detailed, and the courts were able to make decisions based on complete documentation,”
Wąsik wrote.