Court Report: NSO Group, Not Government Clients, Operates Its Spyware
The Facts
Swarn depositions from the lawsuit between Meta-owned WhatsApp and Israeli spyware firm NSO Group show that NSO is the one that "installs and extracts" people's mobile phone data, not its government clients.
The Spin
Spyware companies like NSO have led to justified public backlash, but that shouldn't result in an outright ban on these technologies. While Western governments are at the forefront of the fight to restrain malicious spyware schemes, they also need access to these tools to combat adversarial regimes and nonstate actors, especially terrorists. International treaties are already being built to ensure a happy medium, which is the path the world should stick to.
The US government has been on the right track over the last four years, from Pres. Biden's blacklisting of NSO Group to Congress requiring incident reporting regulations. However, the incoming Trump adminstration appears to be extremely friendly with Israel, which means these bans and regulations could go out the window come January. Protecting sovereign citizens from the prying eyes of intel agencies and private firms should be a bipartisan effort.
