The Knesset today voted down motions by two opposition MKs to debate the subject of wire-tapping and bugging in Israel. The matter was raised by Uri Avneri of the Haolam Hazeh faction, and Shmuel Tamir of the Free Center. Avneri likened the situation to the Watergate scandal in Washington and said the government should have learned from the American experience.
Justice Minister Yaacov Shimson Shapiro, to whom Avneri had submitted a series of parliamentary questions relating to wire-tapping, said he did not object to a debate but wanted more time to study the questions and reply to them. Avneri demanded that he answer the questions immediately.
He wanted to know which agencies were permitted to be bugged; what government authority authorized bugging; what happens to the information so obtained, how is it filed and who has access to it; and what guarantees there are that bugging is not used against newspapermen or political adversaries. Shapiro refused to answer any of the questions at this time.
Avneri recalled that the military correspondent of the newspaper Haaretz had charged recently that his telephone was bugged. Tamir claimed that when he appeared at a major trial in the 1950s his phone was bugged. Both MKs recalled that 11 years ago a Gahal MK had initiated a private members bill to bring bugging under legal control–but it never came to a vote.
They contended that foot-dragging by the government was responsible. Shapiro said the bill had simply foundered in the Knesset legal committee despite government efforts to keep it alive.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
