And why the Biden administration has taken unprecedented action against a company with such deep ties to the Israeli government.
www.thenation.com
Apple has just
filed a lawsuit against Israeli spyware company NSO for harming Apple and its users. Apple accuses NSO of “[weaponizing] powerful state-sponsored spyware against those who seek to make the world a better place,” thus indirectly incriminating Israel. This will further boost the case for banning all spyware.
The Biden administration’s decision earlier this month to “
blacklist” NSO, whose infamous
Pegasus software hacks smart phones, and another Israeli company,
Candiru, which targets computers, may have been influenced by the growing outrage from US-based
tech giants about how NSO’s spyware is
undermining their own systems’ security, thus threatening their markets.
The United States sanctioning foreign companies is an old story. It happens all the time, usually in response to some commercial transactions deemed harmful to what Washington likes to call “US interests.” But while targeting Chinese and Russian companies is by now routine, going after high-profile Israeli corporations is unprecedented.
According to research by
Amnesty International and
Forbidden Stories, NSO’s Pegasus spyware has been used to spy on governments and heads of state, political dissidents,
journalists, and human rights activists, among others. The firm’s customers have included despotic and autocratic regimes, from
Saudi Arabia,
Morocco, and the
United Arab Emirates to
India,
Hungary,
Mexico, and beyond.
French President Emmanuel Macron and 14 government ministers have had their cell phones hacked by Pegasus spyware, as has South African President
Cyril Ramaphosa.