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Mexico’s president acknowledged on Tuesday that he had been informed that a top human rights official was being spied on, but said he had told the official not to worry.
The admission came a day after The New York Times revealed that Alejandro Encinas, the Mexican government’s human rights secretary, was hacked by the world’s most notorious spyware as he investigated abuses by the country’s military.
“They told me about it and I told them not to give importance because there is no intention of spying on anyone,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said after being asked about The Times’ report at a regular morning press conference on Tuesday.
López Obrador, who took office in 2018, has vowed to end the “illegal” and “disrespectful” surveillance of the past and said his government does not spy on anyone.
Mr. Encinas was repeatedly targeted by spyware known as Pegasus in the past year, according to four people who spoke to him about the spying and independent forensic analysis confirmed.
Pegasus can hack cell phones without leaving a trace of noise and extract every bit of data from them: every text message, every email, every photo. The system can even watch people through the phone’s camera and listen to people through its microphone.
People who spoke to Mr. Encinas said they learned the details of the hacks after they were confirmed by Citizen Lab, a watchdog group based at the University of Toronto.
Citizen Lab declined to comment.
The Israeli-made spy tool has infected thousands of cell phones around the world and is licensed to be sold only to government agencies.
There is no definitive evidence of who was behind Mr. Encinas’ phone hacks, but in Mexico, the only entity with access to Pegasus is the military, according to five people familiar with the spyware contract.
Mr. Encinas led the government’s truth commission in 2014 on the disappearance of 43 students, one of the worst human rights violations in the country’s recent history. He and his team accused the military of playing a role in the mass abduction of students.
This is the first time Pegasus has had a publicly confirmed case of spying on senior members of the administration in Mexico, let alone someone close to the president.
When asked whether the government would investigate the surveillance of Mr. Encinas, who has been a friend and ally of Mr. López Obrador for decades, the president said, “No, we are not spies.”
Some rights groups condemned Mr. López Obrador’s comments.
“We regret that the president downplayed the espionage carried out by his government,” tweeted Centro Prodh, a human rights organization whose employees were spied on by Pegasus last year.
An independent group of experts conducting an investigation into the 43 missing students asked the attorney general’s office to investigate the cyber attack on Mr. Encinas, calling it “an act that violates the right to freedom, privacy.”
Under former President Enrique Peña Nieto, there were several Pegasus machines in Mexico controlled by the attorney general’s office, the state spy agency and the military.
But as of 2019, all Pegasus systems in the country have been disconnected except for those operated by the military, according to four people familiar with the contract signed in Mexico.
After the Biden administration blacklisted spyware maker NSO Group in 2021, Israel’s Defense Ministry said it would take steps to prevent the system from being used for anything other than fighting serious crime and terrorism.
The Ministry of Defense then ordered several countries to remove it from Pegasus, but did not revoke the license of the Mexican army and then extend it. A spokesman for the ministry declined to comment.
NSO Group has opened an investigation into Pegasus abuses in Mexico, according to people familiar with the company’s compliance protocols.
It is unclear how the question will affect the fate of spyware in Mexico, where Pegasus has been used against human rights defenders and journalists for years with almost no accountability.
Emiliano Rodriguez Mega contributed reports from Mexico City.
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