Former UN adviser says global spyware threatens democracy: NPR

Israeli company NSO Group spyware has been used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents in several countries. A former UN adviser says this type of spyware is a threat to democracy.

Jack Guez / AFP via Getty Images

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Jack Guez / AFP via Getty Images

Israeli company NSO Group spyware has been used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents in several countries. A former UN adviser says this type of spyware is a threat to democracy.

Jack Guez / AFP via Getty Images

Spyware manufactured by Israeli company NSO Group has been used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents in several countries, according to The Washington Post and other media organizations.

NSO Group says it sells spyware to governments to track down terrorists and criminals. But the To post find Pegasus spyware has been used in “successful attempts to hack 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists, business leaders and the two women closest to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”

David Kaye, a former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, calls the private spyware industry a threat to democracy. Spyware can often collect just about anything on a target’s phone without their knowledge: emails, call logs, text messages, passwords, usernames, documents, etc.

“We are on the brink of a global surveillance technology disaster, an avalanche of tools shared across borders with governments failing to restrict their export or use,” he writes with Marietje Schaake in the To post.

Kaye has been talking about the dangers of spyware abuse for years. He is now a professor of law at the University of California, Irvine. He spoke with the NPR Morning edition.

Interview highlights

On governments monitoring people in other countries

This touches on the fundamental problem. There is no international law governing the use of this technology across borders. There have been instances of foreign governments spying on people in the United States. Thus, for example, the Ethiopian government several years ago carried out a spy operation against a Ethiopian American in Maryland. And yet, this individual had no tool to retaliate. And that’s the kind of problem we’re seeing here right now: essentially transnational repression, but we lack the tools to combat it.

On the dangers for people beyond those directly targeted

If you think about the kind of surveillance we’re talking about, foreign governments having access to journalists or individual activists or others, that in itself is kind of a direct threat to individuals. But it goes even further. I mean, there are many, many cases that show that this type of surveillance technology has been used against individuals or the circle of individuals who then face serious consequences, some of whom have even been arrested for suffering the harsh consequences. worse consequences, like murder, because there is in fact an indication that people around the Washington post Journalist Jamal Khashoggi has been under surveillance both before and after his disappearance and assassination by the Saudi government a few years ago.

On the threat of spyware to democracy

Spyware in many of these situations targets the very pillars of democratic life. It is aimed at journalists and opposition figures, the dissidents of whom we have spoken. And yet there is this very important problem that it is lawless. I mean, this is taking place in a context without governance by the rule of law.

And that’s basically what we’re asking for. We demand that this type of industry finally be subject to export control standards, other types of standards so that its tools are not only more difficult to transfer, but also used in a manner compatible with the state. of fundamental rights standards.

Chad Campbell and Jan Johnson produced and edited the audio interview. James Doubek produces for the web.