"Democracy was being eroded, and there was in this country a parallel secret service which was spying on politicians and journalists, trying to hinder their work or even trying to blackmail them."
Joseph Muscat was loud and clear in this report I lifted from timesofmalta.com. He was yesterday (i.e. Wednesday) speaking in Parliament alleging that someone hacked his email account to get e-mails he exchanged with a journalist.
Dr Muscat has every right to be indignant if someone hacked his e-mail account or procured in any other illegal way or even legal method, correspondence he had with a certain journalist. His anger at the media of the Partit Nazzjonalista for using these e-mails is understandable.
(I write this without at this stage expressing an opinion about whether what happened is ethically correct or not from a journalistic ethical point of view.)
Dr Muscat went a step further.
He expressed his concern for what could happen to ordinary individuals. If this happens to him imagine what happens to ordinary individuals, he exclaimed.
The Partit Laburista continued to emphasise what its leader said in Parliament. The people, the PL said in a statement, were never as concerned as today about their freedom.
For the Partit Laburista the publication of e-mails between individuals is a threat to the freedom of all of us.
This is hypocrisy of the first degree.
Last April, during the divorce referendum campaign, the media of the Partit Laburista – One Radio and One TV - and its fellow travelers – It-Torca and Malta Today – published e-mails which were either hacked or procured in some other illegal way from the computers or offices of a number of ordinary citizens, myself included. The e-mails concerned discussions about the theme song which could be used by the No to Divorce Movement and also possible points that could be raised during a meeting with parish priests on the subject.
Dr Muscat is the leader of the party which is the owner of One Radio and One TV. The media owned by Dr Muscat as leader of the PL, feasted on these e-mails and their content. Those e-mails were published by people who enjoy the full confidence and trust of Dr Muscat.
Dr Muscat, do you think that even the hacking or illegal procurement of e-mails from members of the anti-divorce front was a sign of the erosion of democracy?
What steps did you, as the owner of the media which published these emails, take against your own media who were guilty of – your words not mine - " the erosion of democracy"?
You are playing the victim today but in April you yourself – through your media – were the aggressor. If you are consistent in your belief that the publication of e-mails is a sign of the erosion of democracy then you have to admit that you were politically responsible for the erosion of democracy.
Dr Muscat, your party is saying that people should be concerned for their freedom. Were not the actions of your own media also responsible for acts that should make people concerned for their freedom? Is freedom threatened when the media of the PN publish emails but it is enhanced if your own media publish emails?
You cannot have your cake and eat it, Dr. Muscat.