WhatsApp "attempted" to get NSOs export license revoked and failed. How would you expect America to stop two of their allies from dealing with each other (with a potential courtship in the works)? Especially when America itself gets major weapons contracts to look the other way?
This will just continue to get worse. More journalists and human rights activists will die because some delusional maniacs feelings were hurt, some ex IDF techs want to make some money and a President wants to keep jobs at Lockheed Martin.
Maybe the BDS list should include more countries. Maybe tech as a whole should replace lip service and instead redirect (and/or reject) major funds to fight injustice on a geopolitical level. Maybe VC funds shouldn't "techwash" despot dollars.
The tech industry has a lot of power in itself and can push the needle without the need to rely on 'America' to do something.
Most Israelis I talked to (about this specific subject; including the ones, working for NSO Group) do not understand the concept of human rights. First two questions I get are "How gives these rights?" and "Where does the list written?" in this order with the same intonation. My guess it is result of some kind of indoctrination during high school and army service.
Utter crap. The overwhelming majority of NSO's hiring pool -- i.e. army tech "graduates" -- are firmly against them. Another chunk doesn't care and is swayed by their 2-4x salaries, luxurious company vacations, gifts, all things to "make it up for" what you do.
They're known to be "the bad guys". The tech courses we took in the army had plenty of emphasis on ethics, both the moral kind and conflict-of-interest kind.
>tech courses we took in the army had plenty of emphasis on ethics, both the moral kind and conflict-of-interest kind
All the things done to all citizens of Israel (for example, indiscriminate movement and contact tracing) and residents of occupied territories are made possible by graduates of these courses.
Main emphasis of "emphasis on ethics" is explanation to soldiers how each choice made during a chain of events resulting in underage kid, teenager or old woman in her sixties being shot point-blank is correct and no other choice is possible.
What I meant is "don't go black hat", along with things that, upon writing this reply, might be too revealing to put online.
I've written and rewritten this reply maybe four times, but there's really no way to phrase it in a way you won't twist it to fit your "you're personally responsible for civilian murder" narrative. But I know what we did (my dept. at least), and that was not it.
That's absolutely bullshit, many tech literate people here are against the weapon industry, which NSO is part of. Enough of them don't give a shit, which is why NSO can hire people from the intelligence arm of the army for ridiculous salaries.
Not in the weapons industry, but in my experience statements like that struggle to hold up to the test of time. Seems like the places I wanted to work the least for offered the most, by a significant margin.
It's about making your lifestyle fit around the expected income and making a choice to accept lower wages in industries which align greater with your morals.
Everyone involved from NSO execs through to the Saudi's and Emirati's should be facing DOJ indictments no different to what Russian, North Korean and Chinese hackers face
This thin veneer of NSO being a legitimate company has been exposed
india for the last couple of years has been cracking down on "whatsapp groups" in occupied kashmir for reasons unknown. the encryption has not helped them because now they cant just use their homegrown network analyzer called "netra" to sift through whatsapp messages like they do on facebook. instead they opted to have whatsapp admins get "registered" and "licensed" to operate their groups. this resulted in being called into the police station and having this pegasus and other shit installed so that they can get backdoor access.
the one thing these media outlets don't outrightly say is the reason why admins are told to report to police stations and someone on twitter has an answer to that.
> Maybe tech as a whole should replace lip service and instead redirect (and/or reject) major funds to fight injustice on a geopolitical level.
So instead of a democratically elected US Govt dropping freedom from a 1 billion bomber on a 10$ tent, A bunch of hippies in a small part of the US should use the power of social media to control and direct conversation, culture and world events like some sort of a uber-exclusive shady techbro-illuminati?
The problem is genuine but any solution involving tech would only worsen the problem
America didn't stop giving aid to Israel despite 53 years of military occupation and apartheid. You think this is going to be the thing that changes the status quo on Israel?
People regularly do say that, and they are generally the same ones using Iran's support of Palestine to justify our actions against Iran. I don't get your point.
The problem with ISIS is their beheadings, slaughter of innocents, destabilization of countries, piracy, and persecuting minorities. Not their support of Islam.
The problem with Iran is their development of nuclear weapons, their ballistic missile program which now extends in range to cover the Europe, their support in weapons, money and training of various paramilitary groups such as the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, their oppression of their own citizens, hanging gays from cranes, various bombing and attack operations (US forces, Saudi facilities), attacks against oil tankers and calls to annihilate Israel. Not their support of Palestine.
Now ask yourself, how much of that list is the US or Israel also guilty of an equivalent crime? Supporting Palestine is one of the few things that seperates them.
You seem to assume “America” values the lives of all journalists, including ones outside their sphere of influence. That has never been true, and likely never will be.
As long as US and Israel are fundamentally aligned on long-term foreign policy objectives, aid will continue to be provided no matter what. Dirty work has to be done by someone.
America has no qualms killing journalists in their sphere of influence, and they even prosecute journalists for reporting on their killings. See "Collateral Murder."
You better watch and read up on collateral murder again, because it sure as shit wasn’t an example of America having no qualms about killing journalists.
Two journalists were killed for being with people committing no hostile actions, the soldiers involved in the actions laughed and taunted those they slaughtered, the government then lied about what had happened for years, and the only people to face punishment are Manning and Assange. And no, carrying weapons in a war zone does not make this acceptable.
When exactly does the US give a shit about killing journalists?
No, that isn’t what happened. Why are you pretending that they knew they were journalists instead of acknowledging that this incident was a tragic mistake?
Nothing in my post pretends that, and "how should we know the media card carrying unarmed civilians we shot were journalists" doesn't help their case as much as you think.
It helps it exactly as much as I think. Obviously the only one who said anything like that is you though. And now you’re falsely claiming that they intentionally targeted unarmed civilians.
I might be able to agree with your extremely forgiving view of the military's actions if they didn't cover the incident up for years. Instead, they intentionally shot unarmed civilians who had done nothing wrong merely for being close to people carrying weapons and reported killing insurgents.
You keep accusing me of lying without even attempting to explain how I'm wrong. The original group containing two journalists was fired on with the US fully aware only a few weapons were present, and with no hostile actions happening. Explain how shooting those people isn't intentionally targeting unarmed civilians.
If America wanted NSO to avoid dealing with particular countries, all it would take is a single phonecall to the Israeli government. It can do that, because one country is a superpower and a different country is the client.
I suspect the reason that does not happen is because NSO does the US's dirty work for it, otherwise the US would have stopped it already. After all, the US directly supports those same governments NSO works with. It's probably not too upset its dependents are getting support from a different actor.
AIPAC's secret is the impression it's so powerful, but whenever an American administration wanted to advance a policy AIPAC didn't like (from selling aircraft to the Saudis in the 80s all the way to the Iran Deal), AIPAC melted away. It has no power to defend NSO, and I doubt it even has an interest to.
Why would Trump care to withdraw from the Paris climate accord or the Cuba normalization agreement?
I'm not arguing Nethanyahu played no role, he did deploy whatever influence and persuasion he could muster, and that helped overpower the influence of those who supported the deal, like French President Macron. But ultimately it was Trump's decision, and Nethanyahu would have had to live with it had Trump made a different call.
Aside, note that nobody even thinks of easing up US sanctions on Cuba again or rejoining that agreement with Cuba. The Democratic party got such a signal from Hispanics last elections it's not even on the agenda.
NSO is a private company. It was even in foreign ownership up to not long ago (when it was repurchased by its original founders).
This is not something AIPAC is concerned with. Clearly US government as well as Israeli government have some interest in letting NSO roll its operations (have any NSO officials been banned by the US? US knew to ban Israeli officials in the past, AIPAC or not).
I say that precisely because I have been paying attention. The opposite impression is useful for both sides, but in reality America calls the shots. Israel would go against America's position only on issues it considers existential or close to such. I doubt NSO even registers.
Netanyahu ran campaign ads about how he undermined and disrespected Obama, even while getting Obama to give him a record $38 billion aid. He colluded with Flynn and the Russians to undermine Obama and promote Trump. He gets whatever he wants from the US. When he wanted to attack BDS he got the first piece of legislation out of the 2019 US Senate, bill S-1. That's more US political power than Chuck Schumer.
"Netanyahu ran campaign ads about how he undermined and disrespected Obama"
More accurately, he ran campaign ads arguing that he fought for Israel against the Iran deal. He further presented himself as a victim of Obama's disrespect, especially since the 'shoe on table' incident.
[EDIT:
"while getting Obama to give him a record $38 billion aid"
Longstanding American policy to bolster its client, also a part of the Camp David accords. I do think the aid agreement should not be renewed next time since it's counterproductive to both sides.
]
"He colluded with Flynn and the Russians to undermine Obama and promote Trump."
Wrong. Note however that focusing on this conspiracy shows where the true power lies. When America interferes in Israeli politics it does so openly and without even much mention, because there's no point, it's that powerful (e.g. Clinton helping Peres and Barak, or V-15's funding).
"He gets whatever he wants from the US."
That's why he got the same terms from Obama as he did from Trump, right? After all, it's the same Nethanyahu. Nah. It's American policy that changed.
All your list is part of Nethanyahu's mystique ("I speak perfect English! I can get the Americans to work in our favour! Even when the administration doesn't support me, because I have so many connections and am so convincing it doesn't matter!"), which is very good for him electorally, but most Israelis have woken up from that.
P.S.
"That's more US political power than Chuck Schumer."
That's a trick question, right? Since Schumer has almost no power - no stage presence, minority in Senate. He can't even threaten the filibuster.
(What would he filibuster? The Judicial filibuster has been cancelled, and the Republicans barely have a legislative agenda.
After the GOP keeps majority, everything will be decided by Biden-GOP negotiations, and Schumer will have to sign the dotted line.)
We saw the news this year when a Saudi prince directly authorized the murder and dismemberment of an American/Saudi journalist inside it's own embassy. And literally nothing happened.
I'm not holding my breath on America ever making the right decisions with respect to foreign policy.
Khashoggi wasn't American. And imo, he was an idiot - never sought asylum, constantly criticized the Saudi regime, and in the end got diced because he decided it would be spiffy to go to the embassy of the very regime he attacked to get a marriage document or something. That was hubris at play, thinking that he was highly placed enough to not be killed.
His nationality matters in that the US shouldn't raise as much hue and cry as people expected them to do. In fact, the US response was more than sufficient.
Should the US government be equally responsible for your life if you decide to put your head inside a crocodile's mouth? Yet the US government does its part *1000 to get its own citizens back to safety (or kills them with drones, but that's another story). Most countries don't even bother with such hassles - on the contrary, if you're unlucky enough to be British, your government will try to use you as a bargaining chip.
I don’t think this is wise. China, Russia, etc will continue to develop these exploits; What is needed is better security. Of course, most people don’t really care about nation states spying on their phones (it doesn’t have any concrete bad effects on them, after all).
Nations have no friends, only interests, the same could be said with most corporates.
At the risk of sounding pessimistic, there's no value in changing anything if the current course of action aligns with the long term interest of US policymakers and their stakeholders.
From [1]: It's a tight interplay of America's long-running Middle East strategy, US public opinion/electoral politics, and a pro-Israel lobbying campaign that is effective.
Related to the pro-Israel lobbying, the documentary "The Occupation of The American Mind"[2] delves into the propaganda effort that was carried out for years to shape the American public opinion about Israel. I quite recemmend it.
The religious right can't even prevent Drag Queen Story Hour from happening, what makes you think they have this much power?
It's more likely that it is simply the influence of Israelis and Jews in America, who are powerful enough to determine US foreign policy (Jared Kushner, as far as I can tell, is not a "religious right" but a zionist Jew).
They have a lot of power because nobody is opposing them in issues related to Israel. Because most people are ok with the status quo, fanatical christians pull their strings with large number of voters to support anything related to the state of Israel.
It’s more likely someone is unaware of your examples, because it requires a level of knowledge in corporate geopolitical actors that most people wouldn’t come across via normal news streams.
I’ve seen too many of these comments over the years. They always come from the same hateful place. Once comments like that bubble up, it’s no longer a dialogue and the person writing them is not debating in good faith.
The guidelines tell you to assume good faith, and I think the commenter you’re replying to gave a fairly reasonable explanation of the intention behind what was written. For the most part, people don’t have a vendetta against Israel in particular: they are just unaware of other cases, or aren’t going to bring them up in an article about the NSO group, which is Israeli.
I mean, Israel/Palestine obviously a complicated political topic. There’s the BDS, there’s a pro-Israel lobby–my point is that a comment made about trying to punish Israel for allowing the NSO to operate isn’t necessarily trying to push an agenda beyond “I’m angry that exploit brokers exist here”.
Can you please stop doing this? Multiple people (including myself) have told you directly and repeatedly that your comments are not helpful. Israel, Apple security, Rust, I couldn’t care less: the point is you show up and repeatedly post borderline flamebait and drag the conversation down. Your comments outside of those topics seem completely reasonable and productive so I am unsure why you keep at this particular thing.
Seems fairly hypocritical in a number of ways. From our own companies actions, like Blackwater, to our allies actions, like Saudi Arabia, to our own government's actions, like "Collateral Murder" or events in Yemen. Why punish Israel?
The whole "assist[ing] in getting journalists arrested/murdered/dismembered" thing still seems like pretty good justification to me. I'm not sure "but everyone else is doing it!" makes that acceptable. Requiring that we deal with every single one of those problems simultaneously else we shouldn't bother with any of them doesn't seem productive.
I'm also not sure I'd describe the refusal to actively fund that behaviour as punishment, but I suppose that's somewhat beside the point.
>Requiring that we deal with every single one of those problems simultaneously else we shouldn't bother with any of them doesn't seem productive.
Then deal with the domestic ones first, the ones we have the most control over. People only care about these issues when the solution is "punish the country," a solution that likely causes more suffering than it stops.
Israeli courts rejected the case to revoke NSOs export license which would then implicate the state itself.
IANAL but I think the case can be made that the export of NSOs software is against US law and a violation of the Wassenaar Arrangement. See: 5D002.C.1
So in theory if Israel is allowing one of its companies to break US law then it would make sense to use that as a basis to stop aid to Israel which may be what OP is alluding to.
Israel is not a signatory of the Wassenaar Arrangement, and I'm not sure how that would work under the law mentioned. Either way, it would be rather targeted enforcement considering what the Hacking Team apparently did with Italy signing the agreement.
Whether the actions are technically illegal doesn't really matter unless we are already punishing anyone that breaks those laws. In your hypothetical, we would be punishing Somalia when Italy did the exact same thing unpunished.
I forgot to add on my hypothetical that the Somalian government was protecting me. In which case it would be valid for people to be calling for sanctions let alone revocation of state aid.
Iirc, hacking team dissolved or greatly downsized after their leak. I do not recall any cases against them for their export license to be revoked. I'm sure if the Italian courts rejected the case baselessly then there would be consequences (maybe further legal action/sanctions on specific individuals) as Italy does not operate with the same unique impunity that Israel does.
The difference with Italy is that it does not receive state aid from the Americans. I'm sure if they were then people would be calling for cuts in a similar situation.
>The difference with Italy is that it does not receive state aid from the Americans. I'm sure if they were then people would be calling for cuts in a similar situation.
This isn't true. On top of the general disaster aid, including $10 million for COVID, we have seven US military bases in the country which accounts for millions a year in aid.
The US is by far the worst aid giver in the western world. Most so-called aid is "you can have this gift if you use it to buy X, Y or Z from businesses in the US".
Look to Scandinavia and you'll see actual aid instead of (poorly) hidden state sponsoring of defense contractors. They even give more per capita than the US without those strings attached. US aid is embarrassing.
Besides, US bases are not aid to the host country but aid by the host country to the US.
>Besides, US bases are not aid to the host country but aid by the host country to the US.
They eliminate some need for the host country to spend on their military, often provide rent money, and stimulate the local economy. It's done to usurp sovereignty, but the host agrees as it benefits them financially.
I don't disagree with your broader point, but I don't see how it changes anything. Calls to stop aid to a country differ even if the countries do the same thing.
Oh ok. Thanks for the correction. If the Italian government shields hacking team then I wouldn't be surprised if someone said that they should have that state aid cut.
Can you elaborate why do you think that export of NSOs software would be against US law, preferably which specific law?
My first assumption is that the act isn't covered by any US law at all. For some analogy, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi does not violate any US law as the many US laws regarding murder (i.e. the separate criminal statutes of each of the US states plus any federal laws that may apply) do not regulate acts done by Saudi citizens to Saudi citizens in Istanbul.
So the question becomes not about legality but about policy - whether the act harms US interests. And arguably selling of arms and tools by US allies (e.g. Israel) to US allies (e.g. Saudi Arabia) is not against US policy and thus there's no grounds to apply any sanctions - now, if NSO would sell the same things to Iran, that would be a different issue.
USA could have standing if NSOs tools have been used to hack journalists in USA - but this is not what this article is about. If NSOs tools have been used to hack journalists in Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirate or Mexico, that's not a violation of USA laws; and if this has happened according to the legal permissions of the respective government (no matter how lax or arbitrary granting these legal permissions may be) then it's not a violation of any law; if we look from the purely legal perspective and not the moral one, it's perfectly legitimate for sovereign states to make laws that abuse their journalists as much as the state wants as long as it doesn't rise to the level of crimes against humanity. Almost any act or argument against a dictatorship abusing their people is inherently political, not legal.
One incident where NSO may be in hot water is the hacking of Rania Dridi described in the original article if the events happened in London (it's unclear to me from the description) - then this may be cause to assert that NSO are complicit in violating UK law (but not USA law).
I get what you're trying to say, but specifically it's the US ongoing blockade putting their food supplies at risk, and more generally you are still punishing other countries for actions we engage in regularly. Start by prosecuting the CIA that plotted assassinating Assange.
