Rarieda Member of Parliament Otiende Amollo on Wednesday admitted that NASA hacked the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) servers to access results of the August 2017 presidential results.
While making his submissions opposing the enactment of the Cyber-crime bill in Parliament, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) MP stated that the law was unconstitutional as some words that were not defined would be used to infringe on the rights of Kenyans.
"Those of us who belong to the NASA coalition complained in the Supreme Court, which directed that servers be opened, but the commission refused. We were able to access the servers and we published results.
[caption caption="Otiende Amollo"]
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"If this bill was a law we would now be serving jail terms of not less than five years or we would be compelled to pay hefty fines," he stated.
Otiende who represented Raila Odinga during the petition challenging President Uhuru Kenyatta's victory in the August elections added that he would not support the bill which would infringe on the rights to access information.
"And therefore being a person who would want to access the servers in the future in the unlikely event that IEBC unlawfully refuses to present the information, I would most definitely not support it," he added.
His sentiments were strongly opposed by the Jubilee faction in the House with Murang'a Woman Representative Sabina Chege demanding that he withdraws his remarks.
"It should be put on record that the MP presents evidence that they hacked the servers or withdraws the statement. If they accessed the servers, that is hacking, so they must be held criminally liable. This bill has come in time and we must act or the MP must apologise," she opined.
Nyeri Town MP Wambugu Ngunjiri shared Sabina's point of view adding that NASA should explain how they accessed the servers.
"If they claim this is not hacking, they should define what hacking is so that we all understand what they did," he conveyed.
[caption caption="File image of NASA and IEBC"]
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On the other hand, Makueni MP Daniel Maanzo stated that NASA's actions did not have any criminal implications as the cyber-crime law was not in place at the time.
"Hacking is not a crime as such as long as you do it for the common good of the people. Amollo has not done anything wrong. When you speak the truth and it is justifiable, there is no case against it," he explained.
Earlier in January, nominated MP and IT expert Godfrey Osotsi used a PowerPoint presentation to show figures he claimed were manipulated in favour of President Uhuru Kenyatta.
[caption caption="Godfrey Osotsi "]
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The results were later used to swear in Raila as the people's president.
