5 million Turkish people wiretapped in one year: Interior minister

Some 5 million people in Turkey were listened in on in 2012, Interior Minister Efkan Ala has stated, referring to a calculation that around 250,000 people who were wiretapped spoke to at least 20 people on the phone. He blamed officers affiliated with the movement of U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen for the scandal.

"A decision was made [to wiretap] one person, but that person speaks to tens of people. Imagine that he or she spoke to 20 other people - this adds up to 5 million people," Ala said told state-run Anadolu Agency. 
"All these [conversations] were stored and used for blackmailing or threatening. How can such a thing happen?" he asked. 

Blaming the "parallel structure," the term used to refer to the followers of Gülen, who is today an arch foe of the government and President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, Ala said permissions for the wiretapping of 250,000 individuals were "abused," with many people wiretapped even without a permission notice. 

"Their targets were the president, the prime minister, the general staff, the Constitutional Court, the headquarters of army forces, ministries, the National Intelligence Service [M?T], the Foreign Ministry, the heads and children of NGOs, the Directorate of Religious Affairs, businesspeople, political parties and their branch offices, bureaucrats, and journalists. This is unbelievable," he said.

The interior minister said the state is now investigating where these wiretapping recordings are being stored. 

He said many people involved in the illegal wiretappings were from the police department, adding that specific items of equipment had been imported from Denmark and used to detect and wiretap the voice of the then-prime minister Erdo?an in even a noisy room.