Polish Journalists Intend to Seek Legal Action Over Spying Scandal

Polish journalists are seeking to appeal to the Prosecutor's Office after the unveiling of information about the surveillance of the country's special services on 52 media employees during the previous government, one of the journalists said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Wednesday, the Polish cabinet minister in charge of the national security, Mariusz Kaminski, said the country’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) illegally watched dozens of journalists and activists under the previous administration.

"The first step will be to submit a notification to the Prosecutor's Office on alleged crime committed by ABW based on official data presented in the Sejm [the lower house of the Polish parliament] by the minister-coordinator of security services. We will also appeal to ABW [demanding] disclosure of information on who and how was watched," Igor Janke wrote on Wednesday in his blog on the Salon24 information portal.

According to Kaminski, several bloggers of Salon24 were under ABW's surveillance as well.

"Spying on people who express their opinion is a violation of the fundamentals of a democratic state. We cannot just leave it as it is," Janke said.

In February, a new law expanding government surveillance powers came into force in Poland. Under the law, Poland's Interior Ministry gains the ability to access citizens' personal data, communication and internet records without requiring a court's decision.