Knesset member Shelly Yachimovich is a prominent member of the Labor Party, who chairs the Knesset’s State Control Committee. According to a recent report, her online activity has been the target of extensive tracking by the Information Security Department of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). As an elected official, Yachimovich should have parliamentary immunity. The very fact that someone in the IDF decided that her online activities should be monitored (allegedly for security reasons) and then proceeded to track these activities is very disturbing.

Yachimovich first learned that she was being tracked from a report that appeared in Haaretz Oct. 4. The report included a document stating that the IDF’s Information Security Department had been tracking the internet regularly in an effort to keep tabs on nongovernmental organizations, social organizations, political bloggers and politicians. Yachimovich was shocked and deeply offended to see her name on the list. According to her, the very idea that the army is keeping track of an elected official’s political activity is horrifying, but it also runs counter to the very nature of Israel as a democracy.

It turned out that this tracking began two years ago. It is done by scanning posts on social media sites, as well as in blogs, forums, search engines, chatrooms and news sites. The purpose of all this is to identify security leaks.

It is no coincidence that the IDF began tracking internet activity about two years ago, just as it is apparently no coincidence that the target of their tracking is a politician identified with the left.