Ran Bar-Zik, tech journalist at Haaretz, has expressed "great concern" over Israel Police's use of the Pegasus program to spy on Israeli citizens.
"I, today, as an Israeli citizen, am very worried," Bar-Zik told B'sheva Einayim. "I don't feel protected. I don't feel that my partner is protected, that my children are protected."
"All the information on us - it's not just one aspect of our lives, it's everything." He added, "We don't even have all the information on how to protect ourselves, or even on all of the abilities of this tool."
"That's what's so scary. You have this feeling of there being power...that's an infinite power. They can do whatever they want to you with your information, with your personal things, with photos of your children. Plus, you're giving it to police, who are not the most reliable thing in the country, and there's even proof that they make use of this information. And that's where it starts to get very very scary. That's why there's such an uproar, because there was no judicial supervision.
"The police's responses to this expose were very odd, and that's an understatement... The whole story just looks bad - and it's bad no matter what political view you take on it," Bar-Zik emphasized.
He added, "This isn't just my feeling. Anyone who lives in the public domain, who reads newspapers or is on social media - everyone thinks the same thing about the fact that they are spying on civilians using military tools."