Each year the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ukraine’s KGB successor agency, gets court orders to tap the phones of approximately 25,000 people. The number was released by Supreme Court head Vasyl Onopenko in 2011.
This is a lot. In Australia, for example, 3,488 warrants for wire taps were issued in 2010. In the U.S. 2,732 cases were authorized by federal and state courts in 2011.
But in Ukraine, this is just the tip of the iceberg. By law, the right to gather information via phone tapping solely belongs to the SBU, and usually requires a warrant granted by a court. However, warrantless wiretapping is allowed in cases when subjects are investigated by the counter-intelligence department.
Also, human rights activists and alleged victims say the SBU often deceives judges, typically by bundling together different people’s phone numbers in a single request they file to court.
Volodymyr Boyko, a journalist at the ord-ua.com investigative web site says this is what happened to him, his chief editor Stanislav Rechynsky and Serhiy Leshchenko, deputy editor of Ukrainska Pravda web site.
“Our phone numbers were put on the requested list for phone tapping that the SBU submitted to court. Instead of putting one phone number of a smuggler they were investigating, they put four numbers, claiming that all belong to this one person,” says Boyko.
“We noticed no unusual sounds, nothing suspicious – the technology is very advanced now,” Rechynsky explains, adding that he was tipped off about the tapping by his sources in the SBU.
The security service denies using any such tricks.
But late last year, a local court in Odesa convicted a police officer for illegally wiretapping the ruling Party of Regions lawmaker Serhiy Kivalov using the very scheme described by Boyko. Kivalov then said that investigators established that the officer was acting on orders from above, but they failed to follow up on the lead.
There is evidence that tapping is rather common in Ukraine.
“Actually there are numerous cases of criminal investigations of phone tapping or email hacking in Ukraine. But such information is protected by the secrecy of investigations,” says Oleksandr Plotnikov, counsel and attorney-at-law at Arzinger Ukraine law firm.
“In developed nations the permission to tap somebody’s phone and gather information is granted in exceptional cases – for example if the person is being investigated under terrorism charges, the drug business and the like. But Ukrainian legislation allows tapping in any crime which is qualified as serious – that is with punishment of five years and more,” says Yevhen Zakharov, head of Ukraine’s Helsinki human rights group.
He says that in many developed nations secret services and the police are strictly obliged to file annual reports about cases of tapping and other stealth information gathering methods. They also inform the monitored person that their privacy was violated for the investigation.
“They report – how many times have they asked the courts, how many warrants were granted, which crimes they were regarding, how many criminal cases were opened as a result of information gathering,” says Zakharov.
This is not the case in Ukraine. There are no such reports, and this data has been classified since 2005.
SBU spokesperson Maryna Ostapenko says that most tapping is conducted illegally by other parties, not the SBU, and the scale is impressive.
“People listen to their business rivals, spouses, politicians, gather compromising evidence. The equipment is imported illegally, usually from China,” says Ostapenko.
She says it is very difficult to track such wiretapping. According to a top government official speaking under the condition of anonymity, 200 wiretapping units were imported lately to Ukraine.
The right to privacy of telephone conversations and correspondence is guaranteed under the Constitution of Ukraine and the Criminal Code. The prosecutor and a special Interior Ministry department are supposed to enforce this right, but none of the alleged victims the Kyiv Post spoke to turned to them.
Those who did so earlier, like journalists Oleksandr Korchynsky and Oleksandr Chalenko, were turned down due to “lack of evidence.”
“Several individuals have been sentenced to criminal punishment for illegal wiretapping of telephone conversations of senior officials, but the overall percentage of such cases is low,” says Oksana Voinarovska, partner at Vasyl Kisil & Partners law firm. “Apparently, here not all the victims have the patience or resources to fight for their rights, or the illegal actions are carefully masked.”
The most obstinate go all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights. The latest case took place in 2006, when a Ukrainian citizen successfully sued police officers for illegally obtaining their mail.
Others have found ways to adapt.
“I know my phone was tapped during the 2010 local elections. My acquaintances from the SBU told me openly about it. But I have never complained. In our technically advanced time and, especially in Ukraine, a person should understand that no electronic means of communications are confidential,” says Svyatoslav Oliynyk, a former prosecutor and member of parliament.
Many members of parliament say they avoid discussing important political or business activities on the phone or via email. Some add that during important confidential meetings they switch off their cell phones and take out the battery to prevent any tapping.
“Those who truly care are investing in protecting themselves by hiring private specialists,” adds Voinarovska of Vasyl Kisil & Partners.
Some cases of email and phone monitoring that became public
Feb. 2013: Pavlo Demenskyi from Transparancy International Ukraine says his email was hacked and the unknown intruders sent provocative statements to the media, including ones demanding a moratorium on shale gas extraction in Ukraine.
Feb. 2013: Spokesperson for former Deputy Prime Minister Hryhoriy Nemyria, Natalia Lysova says her email was hacked and somebody sent a statement to the media.
Feb. 2013: Yulia Tymoshenko’s lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko says his email was hacked and he expects it to be leaked online soon.
Jan. 2013: A phone conversation between Tymoshenko and her husband Oleksandr is leaked online.
Jan. 2013: Investigative journalist Serhiy Leshchenko from Ukrainska Pravda news web site, says his email was hacked and the hackers were trying to get him to install a corrupt file to access both his computer and Ukrainska Pravda servers.
Dec. 2012: Journalist Mustafa Nayem says he has grounds to believe that somebody is reading his email.
Dec. 2012: Personal emails from Tymoshenko’s daughter Eugenia’s mailbox leaked on the internet. Eugenia Tymoshenko said that while most emails were original, some, like the ones with invoices for her mother’s medical treatment at German Charite clinic, were forged.
Feb. 2012: Emails of Sonya Koshkina, chief editor of LB.ua are published online.
Sept. 2012: Personal email of Tymoshenko’s close ally Nemyria and is leaked to the internet. The most controversy was caused by alleged payments made by Nemyria to a British PR company from his offshore Cyprus-based companies.
July 2012: Private emails of political consultant Semen Uralov is allegedly hacked and emails published online. Uralov said the majority of emails were original and some were fake.
June 2012: Tymoshenko’s daughter Eugenia says her email was hacked. “My phones and phones of my relatives are also being tapped,” she added.
Jan. 2010: A telephone conversation of then Prime Minister Tymoshenko and Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili is leaked online.
June 2007: A phone conversation between then President Viktor Yushchenko and then Prime Minister Tymoshenko is leaked online.
Nov. 2000: Hours of alleged conversations of then President Leonid Kuchma go public. The recordings were allegedly made by one of the president’s guards.
Kyiv Post staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can be reached at [email protected].
