Govts used it to snoop, says US, because it blacklists Pegasus-maker NSO

Israel’s NSO Group, on the centre of a storm ever since a worldwide investigation revealed that its Pegasus spyware and adware was allegedly used to focus on journalists, human rights activists, Opposition leaders the world over, was introduced underneath export controls by the Biden administration Wednesday.
The US Department of Commerce, in a press release, mentioned the NSO Group and Candiru, one other Israeli firm, had been added to the Entity List “based on evidence that these entities developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments that used these tools to maliciously target government officials, journalists, business people, activists, academics, and embassy workers”.
These instruments, the Department of Commerce mentioned, have additionally “enabled foreign governments to conduct transnational repression, which is the practice of authoritarian governments targeting dissidents, journalists and activists outside of their sovereign borders to silence dissent” and that such practices “threaten the rules-based international order”.

The motion by the US authorities, it said, is a part of “efforts to put human rights at the centre of US foreign policy, including by working to stem the proliferation of digital tools used for repression” and is “aimed at improving citizens’ digital security, combating cyber threats, and mitigating unlawful surveillance”.
The assertion mentioned Positive Technologies (Russia) and Computer Security Initiative Consultancy Pte Ltd (Singapore) too had been added to the Entity List which limits their entry to US parts and know-how by requiring authorities permission for exports.
It quoted US Secretary of Commerce Gina M Raimondo: “The United States is committed to aggressively using export controls to hold companies accountable that develop, traffic, or use technologies to conduct malicious activities that threaten the cybersecurity of members of civil society, dissidents, government officials, and organizations here and abroad.”

Every week in the past, the Supreme Court ordered a “thorough inquiry” into allegations of unauthorised surveillance utilizing the Pegasus spyware and adware in India. Ordering the probe, a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana made it clear that the State can’t get “a free pass every time the spectre of ‘national security’ is raised”.
Three editors of The Indian Express — two present and one former — had been amongst over 40 journalists and greater than 100 others whose telephone numbers figured in a leaked listing of potential targets of surveillance by an “unidentified agency,” utilizing the Pegasus spyware and adware, The Wire had reported as a part of a worldwide investigation, drawing on knowledge accessed by Paris-based Forbidden Stories. Among the telephones focused had been these of Rahul Gandhi, Ashwani Vaishnaw, Prashant Kishor, Abhishek Banerjee, Prahlad Patel, Ashok Lavasa and Rakesh Asthana.
A day after the Supreme Court ordered a probe, Naor Gilon, Israel’s new ambassador to India, declined to be drawn into the difficulty, calling it an “internal” matter of India.
Asked whether or not the embassy or the Israeli authorities will cooperate with the committee tasked by the Supreme
Court to conduct an inquiry, Gilon mentioned: “NSO, very simply and I will not go into more details, is a private Israeli company. Every export of NSO needs a licence from the Israeli government. We grant the export licence only for exporting to governments. This is the only and the main requirement, they cannot sell it to non-governmental actors.”
“What is happening here in India is a really internal thing of India, and I would rather not go into your internal affairs,” he mentioned.