Already the government’s Shin Bet corona surveillance program blinked off for a period of hours between March 14 and 15. It kicked in again later that day and may blink off again Sunday night until Election Day on Tuesday or even later this week.
On the one hand, the consistent reduction in infection rates, a High Court of Justice ruling limiting the program and pressure from the Shin Bet itself to get out of the health business and focus on its main concern, counterterrorism, have hammered the program’s support.
On the other hand, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Health Ministry continue to press to keep the program in effect at whatever level they can manage.
There is also a new cat and mouse game between the government and the Knesset over the program. The last time the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee extended the program for a full three weeks was on February 15. The committee is led by chairman Zvi Hauser.
Since then, at different points, Hauser has let the program continue without holding a hearing, let the program self-expire without extending it and, most recently, extended the program from March 14 until today.
However, in the complex web of Knesset coronavirus law, today the government has many options regarding the Shin Bet program. Letting it blink off and then blink back on again in a few days may be its latest strategy.
If the government fails to provide new criteria and data demanded by Hauser by Sunday night, the Shin Bet program will cease to function.
Yet, at any point Monday, Tuesday or later in the week, the government can decide to renew the program and the Knesset would have to reconvene should they choose to place limits on the newest decision.
If the government renews the program on or after Election Day, there may not yet be a new Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to meet to regulate that decision.
There are ways to get an emergency version of a committee up and running in only a matter of days instead of waiting weeks or longer. But this would require a party or coalition (even if a government is not yet formed) of those who want to limit the Shin Bet program to take at least temporary power within the Knesset from Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin and the Likud.
Even if the program is extended – in its current iteration – the Shin Bet’s technological tool can only be used to determine the travels and interactions of corona-infected citizens who refuse to cooperate with the state’s epidemiological probes or who report zero interactions with others.
Moreover, the government has set two barometers that could lead to the Shin Bet program completely freezing for a more extended period. These are: 1) If new corona infection rates per day drop below 1,000, or 2) if the spy agency is only locating 5% of new infections exclusively (the epidemiological probes missed certain interactions with infected citizens), then having met those parameters, the program will halt.
The government’s shift on the issue comes following a March 1 High Court of Justice ruling ordering such a shift as well as pressure from within the Shin Bet itself to extricate the organization from the health issues so that it may revert to its real work of counterterrorism.
Still, if infection rates spike again at any point, there is no indication whether or not either the High Court or the Knesset would step in to prevent the Shin Bet from returning to maximum levels of surveillance.