Last update - 00:00 24/09/2007
Shin Bet accused of obtaining data from cell phone companies
By Yuval Yoaz
The licenses that the state gives to cell phone companies contain a secret codicil requiring them to give the Shin Bet security service information about conversations and messages that its customers transmit on their cell phones, according to the Movement for Freedom of Information in Israel (FOIM).
However, the cellular companies - Pelephone, Cellcom, Partner and Mirs - as well as the Communications Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office, which oversees the Shin Bet, all declined to confirm the existence of such a directive. If this addendum does exist, it would potentially impair the privacy rights of millions of cell phone customers in Israel without their knowledge.
FOIM plans to petition the administrative court in Jerusalem this morning against the Communications Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office to seek publication of the "security appendix to the licenses of cellular companies and Internet service providers registered in Israel." According to FOIM, secret codicils of this nature are also part of the state's licensing agreements with the ISPs.
FOIM says that ISPs are required to give the Israel Defense Forces, the Shin Bet, the Mossad, the police and the Prisons Service any information they request about Internet users in Israel. This would mean that the state, through its security agencies, can collect data on everything an individual does via the Internet, email, cellular phones or SMS, without court oversight or the knowledge of those being monitored.
Such communications data could include real-time information on the use of cell phones and computers. It could also involve details of conversations via a specific cell phone, the identities of the phone's owner and of those with whom the owner speaks on the phone, the length and frequency of conversations, the exact location of individuals using the phones and individuals' Internet use patterns.
According to FOIM's representative, attorney Dori Spivak of the Tel Aviv University law school's Human Rights Program, "a comprehensive debate is now underway in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee about the extent of judicial oversight needed to pass on communications data, and about drawing a line between wiretapping to hear the content of conversations and receiving data about the conversation. However, the security appendix already permits the security services to access citizens' communications data, including in real time, without judicial oversight or other supervision and without the citizens' knowledge."
"We discovered a new and surprising classification of documents that are not for public knowledge," FOIM Director Roi Peled told Haaretz. "This means that a document exists that there is no reason to keep secret, but the authorities have decided for some reason that the public must not know about it. We expect clarifications as to who invented this classification of documents."
Peled called the case "a typical confusion between issues involving security and issues that might damage security." He explained that every issue indirectly touching on security is blocked to the public, without any examination of whether a real concern exists that releasing the information to the public would harm national security. "The claim that if the public knows how the security establishment works, this will endanger security, is more in keeping with the regime in East Germany than with a democratic country," he said.
In its petition, FOIM will ask the court to order the respondents to admit that such a codicil to the licensing agreements exists. However, it is not asking the court for access to information about the uses to which the security establishment puts the authority it has been given to receive the information. "It is one thing to give the state far-reaching powers, and quite another thing to give those powers to the state and conceal it from the public," Spivak said.
FOIM received a letter from the Communications Ministry confirming that some licenses do have two security appendixes, one deemed "classified" by the Shin Bet and the other "not for public release."
The Mirs cellular company said: "If a petition is submitted, we will study it and respond accordingly." Responses from Cellcom, Partner and Pelephone were not forthcoming by press time.