Whose was the ear and who ordered it to listen?

Addressing the public, Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski had extensive, fierce and controversial explanation of events in the scandal “Puch” and its, perhaps, main attribute – wiretapping phone calls.
Priem Minister’s allegations that foreign service is behind the recorded conversations, the ways in which it is done and intrusion in the security system, also caused a backlash.
Regarding these allegations, but the overall atmosphere prevailing in the country, university professor Stefan Budzhakoski, said that foreign intelligence eavesdropping is no news, but more worrying is the intrusion of parties in domestic security system, their division and acting on their interests which are not in favor of the state.
– Tapped calls for political purposes are presented for the second time in Macedonia, which is not good. I do not think that it was an intrusion in the security services from abroad, but we, through the years, didn’t developed enough to use the security system at the service of citizens. The responsibility lies with the political leaders, whether in opposition or position, who should leave the services to do their job. In recent developments, the parties must sit at the table and build a code of political behavior, in which the main interest will be Macedonia – says Budzhakovski.
On the other hand, his counterpart Vladimir Pivovarov sees the allegations of involvement of foreign agencies in the affair with wiretaps with doubt.
– We do not know if that is true. Such a thing has to be proven. If a foreign country, through its intelligence service, did such things, it would cause a diplomatic scandal of enormous proportions and we would witness demarches and even the expulsion of diplomatic representatives. On the other hand, the foreign offices target a small group of people who are of interest on various grounds, and here, according to some sources, it is a matter of tapping of 20,000 people – says Pivovarov.
Regarding the mobile equipment allegedly used, the professor says that if there were cloning of base stations, mobile operators would have certainly noticed it and had to report it.
– It is talked about moving that mobile equipment in the center of Skopje, but what about the base stations outside the capital. Such monitoring of communications is possible, but not safe in the sense that it cannot be detected. Mobile operators would have noticed it by changes in the signal and, under their legal duty, had to inform the services – thinks Pivovarov.
For the time suggested, that eavesdropping lasted a few years, he says, if so, then services “are not Swiss cheese, but non-existent.”
– Services pay great attention to prevent such activities, so does ours. But if this is how highest state officials were bugged, then our security system is non-existent. In accordance to all security parameters, representatives of the highest state authorities use encrypted phones with special encryption. I’ve used it while performing such a function in the security sector. But there is another problem – that we all focus on the technical aspect of eavesdropping, but not the content of the talks, which, maybe not directly, but indirectly give hints to possible criminal acts – Pivovarov said, adding that the mere stating details of judicial proceedings by representative of the executive authority, indicates that legal science and the entire legal system in the country is shattered.