Likud asks for probe of Yesh Atid over Shabbat email warnings

The Likud’s request came following emails sent in the last few days by Yesh Atid with the subject line, “They are going to close down your city on Shabbat.”

By GIL HOFFMAN
Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid speaks at a press conference, November 2017 (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid speaks at a press conference, November 2017
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
The Likud asked the Justice Ministry on Wednesday to open an investigation of Yesh Atid and its leader, Yair Lapid, for alleged illegal usage of databases.
The Likud’s request came following emails sent in the last few days by Yesh Atid with the subject line, “They are going to close down your city on Shabbat.”
“This week media outlets broadcast that Lapid emailed thousands of citizens,” Likud legal adviser Avi Halevy wrote the head of the Justice Ministry’s privacy authority. “Citizens want to know how Lapid received their contact information. We suspect that Lapid illegally used information from government databases, as he did to contact Holocaust survivors in the last election.”
Halevy said a probe is needed because of the importance of the right to privacy and because Yesh Atid is a repeat offender.
Yesh Atid responded that anyone who was sent emails had asked to be on the party’s mailing list. A spokesman for the party said all the addresses were legally obtained and that each email says how whoever received it can request to be taken off the mailing list.
“Netanyahu’s office has apparently stopped running matters of state, because it is too busy spreading lies and attempting to throw mud,” a Yesh Atid spokesman said. “It won’t help them, because no one buys their nonsense that they are trying to sell, because they are under so much pressure.”