The Israeli cyber intelligence firm NSO Group sold the FBI its powerful geolocation tool that tracks mobile phones around the world without the user’s knowledge, the NY Times reported Monday (A Front Company and a Fake Identity: How the U.S. Came to Use Spyware It Was Trying to Kill). The purchase was made five days after the Biden administration had placed NSO on a Commerce Department blacklist, declared it a national security threat, and warned American companies against doing business with it.
According to the Times, the secret contract that violated the Biden administration’s public policy is still active, under a contract that spells out that the “United States government” is the ultimate user of the tool, allowing it government to test, evaluate, and deploy the spyware against targets of its choice (in Mexico).
A White House official told the Times: “We are not aware of this contract, and any use of this product would be highly concerning.”
The Israeli-made weapons offer governments the power to conduct targeted, invasive surveillance that was never available in the past. The Mexican government used it to spy on journalists, and Saudi Arabia used the technology to hack into devices belonging to political dissidents. Most EU countries had contracts with NSO, according to the company: 14 countries did business with NSO in the past, and at least 12 are still using its Pegasus spyware for intercepting mobile calls.
NSO’s goods are just too useful to put down, never mind the US ban. Or as the Times put it: “Even as the Biden administration has showcased its efforts to drive NSO out of business, it was clear even before the revelation of the latest contract that some agencies have been drawn to the power of these cyberweapons.”
It appears that no one in the US security apparatus has been paying attention to Biden’s ban on the clever Israeli spyware. Agencies of the US government have bought the programs, deployed them against––most notably against drug traffickers––and worked clandestinely to consolidate control of them to keep them out of the hands of criminal elements. The list of NSO’s US government clients includes, according to the Times, the FBI and American defense giant L3Harris.
An NSO spokesperson said the company’s programs “are only sold to allies of the US and Israel, particularly in Western Europe, and are aligned with the interests of US national security and governmental law enforcement agencies around the world.”
Even if the US administration is trying to force the company out of business, NSO is still pro-American and legal. The FBI, on the hand, according to the Times used Riva Networks, a small, New Jersey-based contractor, that used the cover name “Cleopatra Holdings,” to procure the Pegasus.
