On Tuesday, two Knesset committees succeeded in slowing the government’s push to legislate various coronavirus-era powers in an attempt to make them permanent. The committees stalled the process in spite of pressure by Prime Minister Netanyahu to pass the new measures through the Knesset.

Two of the most controversial powers are the reinstatement of having Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) run surveillance of coronavirus-infected citizens, as well as switching over many court hearings for prisoners from in-person to videoconference.

The Knesset Intelligence Subcommittee, under the leadership of Zvi Hauser, did not even consider any immediate reinstatement of the program to have the ISA run surveillance again. Hauser instead focused on alternate options to the state tracking individuals and wished to explore the option o tracking trends via the soon-to-be-released Magen 2 app.

Hauser also noted that Shin Bet Director, Nadav Argaman, has come out against his agency being involved in the coronavirus efforts because he wants to focus solely on combating terrorism.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)