Spyware Targets MEP Investigating Pegasus Abuses
This matters because it threatens the integrity of political processes and the ability of elected officials to conduct sensitive investigations without being surveilled.
The plan requires that the delicate, tacit art of parliamentary immunity and investigative discretion be replaced by the explicit rule of digital surveillance. But the practice of political inquiry encodes a specific knowledge of trust, vulnerability, and the unspoken boundaries of official conduct that no algorithm can capture, and the men who possess it - the spies - were not consulted by the institution they sought to protect.
We are told, with the brisk confidence of the Rationalist, that this was a necessary counter-measure. The European Parliament, in its committee on civil liberties, was investigating the NSO Group, a commercial entity that sells spyware to states. The investigation itself was breached. Pegasus, that surgical instrument of intrusion, was turned against the investigators. The response, naturally, is to demand more regulation, more oversight, more explicit rules to govern the digital sphere. But this is to mistake the symptom for the disease. The problem is not that the rules were insufficient; it is that the participants in this affair had forgotten what they were doing.
In any civilisation, the preservation of the ruling class depends less on the brute application of force than on the continuous, ceremonial demonstration of the ruling class’s indispensability. One observes, with the detached curiosity of a fieldworker noting the mating rituals of the Homo corporatectus, that the most valuable commodities in the modern political economy are not goods, but the signals of their possession. When a Member of the European Parliament is targeted by spyware while investigating the very trade in such signals, the incident ceases to be merely a criminal act and becomes, instead, a profound institutional self-portrait. The surveillance of Stelios Kouloglou by the NSO Group is not an aberration in the machinery of statecraft; it is the machinery, greased and running precisely as designed, performing its ceremonial function for an audience of one: itself.
The working family in Brussels, and indeed in every capital of Europe, will notice this in the sudden, chilling silence of their own privacy. That is where the analysis begins. It does not begin in the abstract realms of “national security” or “digital sovereignty,” but in the kitchen, where a mother wonders if the walls have ears, and in the study, where a man wonders if his pen is bleeding ink onto the floor. They will notice it in the quality of their trust, which has been replaced by the rust of suspicion.
The announcement was delivered with the socialprecision one expects of institutions that have spent centuries perfecting the art of saying nothing with an impeccable diction. The European Parliamentary Committee, that vast and softly upholstered drawing room of Western democracy, arranged its furniture with meticulous care. The mahogany was polished to a high, reflective sheen; the air was scented with the faint, medicinal aroma of procedural propriety. Members sat in their designated places, their expressions calibrated to a point between concern and distant interest, the sort of expression one reserves for a draft in the corridor - present, acknowledged, but not to be engaged with directly. The integrity of the legislative process, that fragile chandelier hanging precariously above the tea service, was the subject of polite discussion. It was a perfectly civilised gathering, held in a perfectly civilised building, discussing perfectly civilised concerns.
The crisis room assumes it knows which threats are real and which are imagined. It does not. It assumes it can distinguish the legitimate inquiry of a representative from the malicious act of a foreign power, and in doing so, it assumes it possesses the precise, localized knowledge required to make that distinction without suppressing the very signals that would reveal the truth. Here is what happens when the European parliamentary committee acts as though it can administer justice through surveillance.
The proposed reform addresses the violation of parliamentary privilege while leaving the structural capacity for state-capitalist surveillance intact. This is not an oversight; it is the function of reform. When the European Parliament investigates the use of Pegasus spyware by the NSO Group against its own member, Stelios Kouloglou, the institution does not seek to dismantle the machinery of control. It seeks to regulate it. It wishes to ensure that the whip is only used on those who have been properly sanctioned, rather than on those who are asking inconvenient questions.
Hayek-style
The crisis room assumes it knows who requires surveillance and who does not. It does not. Here is what happens when it acts as though it does.
The socialist opponent identifies a genuine danger: the concentration of coercive power in the hands of those who claim to act in the name of public order. They argue that the use of Pegasus spyware against a Member of the European Parliament represents a structural inversion, where the watcher becomes the subject of the watched, and the tool of state control is turned upon the very institution tasked with checking it. I concede that this is a scandal of class power, insofar as it reveals how the machinery of the state, when unmoored from general rules, inevitably serves the interests of those who control it. The accumulation of surveillance capacity is indeed a feature of centralized authority, not a bug. However, the opponent’s solution - regulation, oversight, and the refinement of parliamentary privilege - rests on the same fatal conceit that created the problem in the first place.
The opponent believes that the state can distinguish between legitimate surveillance and illegitimate intrusion through better design. This assumes that there exists a body of knowledge - specifically, the knowledge of intent and the knowledge of consequence - that a central authority can possess and apply consistently. It assumes that the “whip” can be calibrated to strike only the guilty and spare the innocent. This is the pretence of knowledge par excellence. The information required to make such a distinction is not static; it is dispersed, dynamic, and often hidden even from the planners themselves. The NSO Group, a private contractor, operates in the shadows of the market, just as the state operates in the shadows of the law. To suggest that the state can regulate the NSO Group effectively is to assume that the state possesses superior information about the NSO Group than the NSO Group possesses about itself, or than the market possesses about the NSO Group.
Consider the analogy of the library. The socialist opponent wants to install a librarian who knows which books are dangerous and which are safe. But the librarian does not read the books; he reads the catalog. The catalog is a map of the territory, not the territory itself. When the state intervenes to regulate surveillance, it creates a new layer of bureaucracy - a new catalog - that must be updated constantly to reflect the shifting realities of espionage and privacy. This new layer requires its own information, which it does not have. The result is not a cleaner, more accountable system, but a more complex, more opaque one. The ratchet effect is inevitable: every intervention to correct the abuse of power creates new ambiguities that require further intervention to resolve. The state, seeking to protect privacy, expands its surveillance capacity to monitor the monitors.
The price system, or in this case, the competitive market for security technologies, provides a signal that no central planner can replicate. When the cost of surveillance rises, or when the risk of exposure increases, actors adjust their behavior. This adjustment is not perfect, but it is better than any plan derived from a central office. The market does not guarantee freedom, but it prevents the concentration of knowledge that leads to tyranny. By regulating the NSO Group, the state does not eliminate the threat; it simply transfers the locus of control from a private entity to a public one, without solving the underlying information problem. The state still does not know who is being watched, why, or for how long. It only knows that it has added another layer of administration.
The constructive alternative is not to trust the state with more power, but to constrain it with general rules that do not depend on specific knowledge. We need a framework that protects the individual from arbitrary coercion, regardless of who wields the power. This means strong constitutional protections for privacy, independent judicial review, and transparency requirements that do not rely on the state’s ability to determine what is “legitimate.” It means accepting that some abuse will occur, because the cost of preventing all abuse through central planning is far higher. The opponent’s call for “better oversight” is a call for more planning, and more planning leads to more serfdom.
The question is not whether the outcome of surveillance is desirable - it is not - but whether any authority possesses the information required to regulate it effectively. The answer is no. The only way to preserve liberty in the face of technological change is not to expand the state’s capacity to know, but to limit its capacity to act without general rules. The rival’s vision of a regulated, accountable state is a vision of a state that knows too much and acts too little, or worse, a state that knows too little and acts too much. We must choose the former, for it is the only way to avoid the latter.
Rosa Luxemburg
The proposed reform addresses the specific violation of parliamentary immunity through enhanced surveillance, while leaving the structural monopoly on information production intact. This is not an oversight. It is the function of reform.
We are told that Stelios Kouloglou, a Member of the European Parliament, was subjected to spyware while investigating the very abuses of Pegasus spyware orchestrated by the NSO Group. The irony is not merely cruel; it is epistemological. The committee seeks to uncover a hidden network of manipulation. To do so, it employs the same mechanism of hidden manipulation. The planner’s problem is not that Mr. Kouloglou lacks intelligence or good faith. It is that the information required to secure his investigation - the identity of the attackers, the scope of the compromise, the provenance of the data - cannot be centrally processed because the attackers have already seized the means of information production.
When an institution tries to enforce transparency by using opacity, it does not create order. It creates a spontaneous order of fear. The market for political integrity relies on signals: the price of trust, the cost of verification. When the NSO Group sells its tools, it is selling the ability to silence the signal before it reaches the receiver. This is the core of the libertarian argument: that the state, or indeed any central authority, cannot possess the localized knowledge required to distinguish legitimate inquiry from malicious act without suppressing the truth it seeks to protect. I concede this point entirely. No committee, no intelligence agency, no vanguard party can claim to hold the totality of knowledge required to govern a complex society. The pretense of such knowledge is the root of all tyranny, whether it wears the mask of the free market or the iron fist of the revolution.
However, where we diverge is in the diagnosis of the cure. The libertarian response is to retreat into a market of privacy, to assume that if we simply leave the actors alone, the spontaneous order will correct itself. This is a fantasy of equilibrium. The market for surveillance does not correct itself; it expands. The NSO Group does not sell spyware because there is a natural demand for it; it sells it because there is a structural need for capital to find new avenues of profit when traditional accumulation is blocked. The spyware is not an anomaly in the market; it is a commodity like any other, produced by the same logic that produces sweatshops and financial derivatives. To treat it as a unique failure of state knowledge is to miss the forest for the trees. The enemy is not the central planner; the enemy is the accumulation logic that turns human interaction into a resource to be mined, monitored, and sold.
Consider the analogy of the factory floor in the early twentieth century. When the workers struck, the owners did not argue that they lacked the knowledge to set fair wages. They argued that the workers were incapable of understanding the complexities of the market. The solution proposed by the reformers was to create a committee of experts to determine the “fair” wage, based on data collected by the management. This did not stop the exploitation; it stabilized it. It gave the workers a sense of participation while leaving the ownership of the means of production untouched. Today, the “committee” is the parliamentary inquiry, and the “data” is the spyware. We are given a seat at the table, but the table is built on the backs of those whose communications are being stripped naked. The reform gives us the illusion of oversight, while the structural cause - the privatization of surveillance for profit - remains unchallenged.
The libertarian insists that the state’s attempt to regulate or investigate is the problem. But who regulates the NSO Group? Who investigates the states that buy its tools? The answer is no one, because the market for political integrity is not a market in the traditional sense. It is a market in power. And power, when concentrated in private hands, does not respond to the price signals of transparency. It responds to the price signals of suppression. The cost of verification is not just financial; it is political. It is the cost of trust. When trust is commodified, it is no longer a public good. It is a private asset. And private assets do not care about the truth. They care about the margin.
We must stop asking whether the state knows enough to protect us. We must ask whether the state is protecting us, or whether the state is protecting the accumulation logic that requires our silence. The spyware is not a tool of the state. It is a tool of capital, used by the state when it is convenient, and sold by capital when the state is not. To fight this, we cannot rely on the spontaneous order of the market, nor can we rely on the centralized order of the state. We must rely on the organized power of the working class, who understand that their freedom is not a commodity to be traded, but a condition to be won.
The question is not whether we can trust the committee. The question is whether we can trust the structure that created the committee. And the answer, historically and structurally, is no. The committee is a reform. It is a bandage on a wound that has not been cleaned. It is a way of managing the crisis without resolving the contradiction. And as long as the contradiction remains, the crisis will return, stronger and more desperate than before. We must not be satisfied with the removal of the spyware from Mr. Kouloglou’s phone. We must be satisfied with the removal of the logic that made the spyware necessary in the first place. That is the only reform that matters. That is the only revolution that is possible.
The Verdict
Where They Agree
First, both agree that the foundational crisis is epistemological: no central authority, whether a state committee or a vanguard party, can possess the totality of knowledge required to regulate a complex surveillance ecosystem. Hayek’s “fatal conceit” and Luxemburg’s “pretense of knowledge” are structurally identical critiques of central planning. They concur that any attempt to do so will inevitably suppress the very information it seeks to protect, creating a system more complex and opaque than the one it was meant to fix. This shared ground is significant because it reveals a deep skepticism of technocratic solutions, a point both would likely frame as originating from their unique traditions but which converges on the same intellectual target.
Second, both view the NSO Group not as an anomalous bad actor but as a symptom of a deeper systemic logic. For Hayek, it is a product of the market’s spontaneous order evading the state’s clumsy attempts at control. For Luxemburg, it is a product of capital’s relentless drive to commodify every human interaction for profit. Despite these different diagnoses, they share the premise that the company is an inevitable outcome of the system it operates within, not an exception to it. This agreement is surprising because it suggests that, beneath their ideological rivalry, both hold a similarly deterministic view of how power structures produce their own tools of enforcement.
Where They Fundamentally Disagree
The primary mechanism driving the proliferation of spyware. Empirically, they disagree on whether the market for surveillance tools is self-correcting or self-aggrandizing. Hayek asserts it is the former, arguing that market signals like the rising cost of exposure or risk would naturally curb the worst abuses if the state would stop interfering. Normatively, he values a system where distributed, spontaneous orders are superior to any centrally designed solution. Luxemburg’s empirical claim is the direct opposite: the market does not correct but expands, as surveillance is a commodity produced by capital’s inherent need for new profit streams and mechanisms of control. Her normative position is that this expansion is an inherent evil of the accumulation process, which must be abolished, not managed. Their disagreement is ultimately over whether the market is a disciplining force or an accelerant for oppression.
The viable constructive alternative to the status quo. This is a normative dispute over first principles, with differing empirical expectations. Hayek proposes a framework of general rules - strong constitutional protections, independent judicial review - designed to limit the state’s capacity for arbitrary action without requiring it to possess perfect knowledge. His model is a constrained state operating within a market society. Luxemburg rejects this as a fantasy that leaves the “accumulation logic” of capital untouched. Her constructive alternative is the “organized power of the working class” to seize the means of production and remove the very need for such spyware. Her model is the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist state. The empirical component of their disagreement is a bet on history: Hayek assumes tyranny flows from concentrated state knowledge, while Luxemburg assumes it flows from concentrated economic power.
Hidden Assumptions
- Hayek-style: Assumes that a “market for political integrity” exists and functions analogously to a market for goods, where concepts like “the price of trust” and “the cost of verification” operate as effective signals that guide behavior. If this is false - if trust cannot be commodified or priced - then his entire argument for relying on spontaneous market orders collapses into faith.
- Hayek-style: Assumes that strong constitutional frameworks and independent judiciaries are themselves immune to the corrupting influence of the same concentrated power and information asymmetries they are meant to regulate. If these institutions are just as susceptible to capture by state or corporate interests, then his proposed solution offers no protection.
- Rosa Luxemburg: Assumes a direct and deterministic causal link between the logic of capital accumulation and the specific development of spyware, treating it as an inevitable commodity like any other. If this is false - if the development of such tools is more contingent on unique geopolitical rivalries or specific state security paradigms independent of profit motive - then her structural critique misses its target.
- Rosa Luxemburg: Assumes that the “organized power of the working class” is a coherent, achievable agent of change that would not simply replicate new forms of information control and state power upon its victory. If this is false, her revolutionary alternative leads not to liberation but to a different, and potentially worse, form of tyranny.
Confidence vs Evidence
- Rosa Luxemburg: The claim that “The market for surveillance does not correct itself; it expands” - is presented as an axiomatic article of faith derived from Marxist theory, not as a claim backed by empirical evidence on the elasticity of demand for spyware or the history of similar dual-use technology markets.
- Rosa Luxemburg: The claim that surveillance tools are a commodity produced because “traditional accumulation is blocked” - is a broad macroeconomic assertion that is highly contested and would be extraordinarily difficult to prove or disprove, making the confidence level unsupported by available evidence.
- Debaters-style: The debate featured several high-confidence assertions on fundamental points (e.g., the inevitability of the ratchet effect vs. the inevitability of revolutionary change) that are ultimately untestable prophecies. Their high confidence stems from ideological commitment, not empirical verification.
What This Means For You
When you read about spyware scandals, be suspicious of any proposed solution that does not first define the root cause it is trying to solve. Is the problem a lack of rules, or is it the power that bends the rules? Ask what a proposed oversight committee is actually empowered to do - and what structural interests it leaves untouched. Your view on the efficacy of market-based versus revolutionary solutions will likely determine which debater’s hidden assumptions you find more plausible. To evaluate any claim about the spyware market, demand to see data on the lifecycle of a surveillance contract: not just who bought it, but the specific financial and political pressures that led to the sale.