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Hacking Lawyers or Journalists Is Totally Fine, Says Notorious Cyberweapons Firm (gizmodo.com)
The founder and CEO of NSO Group, the notorious Israeli hacking company with customers around the world, appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes Sunday night to defend the use of his company's tools in hacking and spying on lawyers, journalists, and minors when the country's customers determine the ends justify the means. From a report: NSO Group has reportedly sold hacking tools to dictators including those in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and across Central Asia -- a group of decision-makers whose track record includes numerous examples of human rights abuses and oppression of dissent. NSO's tools have been directly involved in the arrest of human rights activists and, in Mexico at least, spying on lawyers and journalists in an effort to catch the drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. "In order to catch El Chapo, for example, they had to intercept a journalist, an actress, and a lawyer," NSO Group founder Shalev Hulio told 60 minutes. "Now, by themselves, they are not criminals, right? But if they are in touch with a drug lord and in order to catch them, you need to intercept them, that's a decision an intelligence agency should get."
As someone that is presently in Ukraine, and has been to Russia, and Belarus, over the past week, I can tell you that there is no universal definition of "totally fine." To present one in some course of action is to presume that your definition of "totally fine" is the acceptable one (totally fine), which presupposes that all other definitions are incorrect.
This line of reasoning is very similar to the case of when your neighbor is morbidly obese, and going to die from their lifestyle choices, and you decide to do something about it. So, the next time you see your neighbor eating a donut, and drinking a delicious beer, you decide to kick in his door, and knock that crap out of his hand. Maybe you slap him in the face a few times, so he'll learn a lesson. Then, in addition to this, you also decide to use your influence to make it illegal for third parties (in this case, Israelis) to sell him donuts and beer. Since he lives in the same block as you, and that kind of stuff isn't all right.
This is effectively American foreign policy.
There might be some problems associated with selling dictatorships the tools to repress their populations. Just as there are definitely some problems with being sedentary, eating crap, and watching t.v. / posting on slashdot all day. But guess what? The United States is not in control of Israel, or of those dictatorships, and should not act as the world's police, in order to project our values onto an unwilling audience.
Maybe we could lead by example, and not use hacking tools domestically, as a starting point? Like, you know, not eating donuts, drinking beer, and being sedentary, ourselves, before we tell other people how to live. That might be a better path.