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Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

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Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#291

Post by mschuster91 »

snovv_crash wrote: post #267
PeterisP wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The adversarial judicial system is supposed to restrict that by having the defendant's lawyers challenge the evidence and how it was obtained. The prosecution and police can't simply use inappropriate evidence. In some cases it's possible (and worth the effort) to do 'parallel construction' by getting a warrant for some other evidence confirming the same thing, but it's not something that can be done at scale without…

Blackmail by definition isn't used in court.

Of course it is, it's called "plea bargain" - defendants choose between pleading guilty for a pre-arranged punishment or the DA putting up a boatload of charges with the expected punishment excessively above the plea deal [1].

[1]: https://innocenceproject.org/guilty-pleas-on-the-rise-crimin...

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#292

Post by user-the-name »

Terry_Roll wrote: post #70
chews wrote: post #67

"In other cases, NSO’s spyware was installed in the phone of citizens to try to find and collect data and information that isn’t necessarily connected to an investigation or suspicions but simply for investigators to use this data later on as a means of pressure on people being interrogated." aka Blackmail

And anyone who thinks their own country isnt doing the same is deluded! The Security Services has to protect a country which means getting involved in everything, organised crime as well as business, and then when they feel things need to change direction, the security services have the tools aka blackmail information to make that change happen... in most cases!

"But everyone does it!" is absolute intellectual laziness at best and outright dishonesty at worst.

No, everybody does most definitely not do this! That is just not true.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#293

Post by dogma1138 »

shmatt wrote: post #2

Once the method exists. i'd just assume its everywhere We know about Pegasus/NSO and its a fun subject to follow, but in all honesty, every engineer privy to the 0-day bank that powers it could build one of their own, or sell it to another group, and no one would know

Most of their Zero Days are probably short lived and in any case the challenge of running an outfit like NSO isn’t only or even primarily in finding Zero Days.

This isn’t a business model you bootstrap by publishing to an appstore and paying influencer to promote - this isn’t “Raid of Warduty Call of Legends”. You need high level government contacts that can open doors as these deals don’t usually come up on public tenders, and you need people that can manage a relationship with both your host government and client governments especially if either or both are unstable and falling out of favor with a specific regime would result in high legal risk or even actual risk to the safety of you or your employees.

A couple of engineers taking a bag of goodies are more likely than not to end up in prison like the former NSA folks that took up freelancing for Saudi Arabia.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#294

Post by helge9210 »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #208
Barrin92 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't suggesting any value judgement in my post, I'm not really anti-China or anti-Russia either or anything. But I think the notion that Israel is a Western country is largely owed due to geopolitical alliance, not culture or how its state operates. I think what does away with that illusion quickly is the fact that Israel has no civil marriage. In Israel, a Jew cannot marry a Muslim, or a Christian. In the US you…

Yes and no, with the marriages. Marriages in foreign jurisdictions are recognized, so people just take the hop to Cyprus and marry there, if they need to. This is just a technicality, in practical terms. We are not a state that is governed by clergy, there is a free press and independent courts, there is a competitive political process, therefore your assertion that we are not a 'secular western state' isn't true eit…

> We are not a state that is governed by clergy

This is not entirely true.

Over the last twenty years it was no more then couple of years when ultra-orthodox weren't the part of the ruling coalition.

And they were always very explicit about controlling citizenship, marriage, religion and finance.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#295

Post by benja123 »

woodruffw wrote: post #36
rowathay wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US citizen here, and you are correct. The farther left you go, the more anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic sentiment you’ll find.

Please do not conflate opposition to the Israeli state with anti-Jewishness. There are millions of diaspora Jews living in the US who do not accept that conflation and are not fans of Israel.

This is factually incorrect. Every poll of the US Jewish community has shown that between 80% to 90% are supporters of Israel. At most a few thousand US Jews are not fans of Israel, and they are very vocal about it.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#296

Post by enkid »

YawningAngel wrote: post #284
enkid wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Wikipedia article is awful. It says it can be used to hide illegal evidence collection, but then only gives examples of it being used to hide sources and methods. I don't think there is a problem hiding a source if there is sufficient evidence from other sources and the first source is not illegal.

How do you know the first source is not illegal if its validity has not been tested in court?

Testing in court is not the way to enforce legality for police departments. Having someone let go from a crime years after they are arrested based on court proceedings would 1) be too far removed from the illegal behaviour to change that behavior, 2) not catch most illegal behaviour because, as the most likely response would be for the police department to lie about it, 3) not catch behaviour that is illegal but never makes it to court. I would much rather have police departments have strong training about appropriate evidence collection, third party oversight over police behaviour, and technical monitors of behavior such as body cams.

Edit: I just want to point out there should be court cases about it, but they should be focused on repercussions for the offending officers instead. With a model where illegal police behaviour is punished by releasing a defendant doesn't actually punish the police and forces the non-police individual pay for illegal police behaviour by being put on trial.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#297

Post by tsimionescu »

yonixw wrote: post #282
tsimionescu wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is some bias in their choice of covering Israel's crimes much more often than China's, but I don't see the China apologism. They have a more nuanced view on China's global warming actions than you often see, but that view is quite realistic. I have also found one article [0] covering China's appalling treatment of Uighurs - that is little coverage, but it at least proves that they are not entirely covering Chin…

Sure. Look no further. The co-founder [0], Aaron Bastani, has a lot to say about Israel (nothing less than onslaught ofcourse [1]) But according to some of his twitter, we get all that you wanted: * praising China's "wonderful socialist state" [2] (more like its totalaric structure) * how ... happy the Chinese are [3] * defend China's treatment of Uighurs [4] (downplay it a lot) And after I looked, that one article y…

Again, these are not the "smoking gun" examples you make them out to be. Item [3] in particular is a widely accepted opinion - you will find it expressed enthusiastically by such "tankies" as Bill Gates [0] and The Economist [1].

For item [4], his opinion seems rather complex. Here he is praising a thread that condemns China's treatment of Uyghurs in no uncertain terms [2]. Here he is again mentioning the U(i/y)ghur problem and China's authoritarian surveillance state [3].

(Note that if you want to see real honest-to-god tankies, there are plenty in the replies to his tweets. It seems an outlet called Gray Media, that they cite, is also a good example of actual tankies, directly claiming the Uyghur crisis is a "Western fabrication").

It's also important to remember that there is a major difference between Israel and China speaking from a UK/US/EU journalist: our countries are generally pouring billions of dollars of direct support, and heaps of diplomatic support, for Israel. They are doing no such thing for China. So, we have a much better reason to criticize Israel compared to China: we are partly responsible for Israel's crimes; while we bear little to no responsibility for China's (with some exceptions, such as slave labour for the production of export goods, or the status of Hong Kong). We can huff and puff all we want at China, it won't budge. Israel will.

What you're doing here is similar to people complaining that Chomsky criticized the USA without criticizing the USSR as much or more. His point was simple: he lived in the USA and had some measure of say on its direction. He had no such measure of say on the USSR's behavior, so he was naturally more silent on it.

[0] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Goalkeepers-speech-20... - "In the past quarter-century, China lifted more than 500 million people out of extreme poverty"

[1] https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end... - "China pulled 680m people out of misery in 1981-2010, and reduced its extreme-poverty rate from 84% in 1980 to 10% now."

[2] https://twitter.com/aaronbastani/status/1285358145003556864 - "Great thread Ammar.", in response to a thread that says things like "This repression is widely documented: it’s difficult to cover-up concentration camps. It’s also hard to argue against the statements of escapees who describe being ‘brainwashed’, as well as being tortured for speaking the Uyghur language and reciting the Qur’an."

[3] https://twitter.com/aaronbastani/status/1115585109736996864 - "All encompassing surveillance state...not a democracy...uighurs"

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#298

Post by tsimionescu »

yonixw wrote: post #286
tsimionescu wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unironically Yes!!!! Egypt do! Happy you see how mind boggling it is that there are others who deny access to the Gaza strip. (Again, because of their gov - Hamas) No, Egypt has closed its own border with Gaza, but it is not enforcing a naval or airspace blockade, which Israel is. > Who said that? It was during a war. It is because Israel has stronger weapons. A war that shouldn't ever started. Why did Hamas start…

> No, Egypt has closed its own border ... but it is not enforcing .... blockade. Sorry to say pal, you lost the plot. Look at a map please.

Are you claiming that Egypt is exercising control over Palestine's coastal waters, or airspace?

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#299

Post by woodruffw »

benja123 wrote: post #295
woodruffw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not conflate opposition to the Israeli state with anti-Jewishness. There are millions of diaspora Jews living in the US who do not accept that conflation and are not fans of Israel.

This is factually incorrect. Every poll of the US Jewish community has shown that between 80% to 90% are supporters of Israel. At most a few thousand US Jews are not fans of Israel, and they are very vocal about it.

Polls of the “US Jewish community” tend to really be polls of people who read Israeli newspapers that do US polling. There’s a manifest bias in that.

Here’s the source I usually use[1]: 45% of American Jews consider Israel essential to them. Another disjoint minority consider it “important but not essential.” Neither of these imply support for the Israeli state, and neither separates the importance of Israel qua state or political institution from Israel qua the family our loved ones of the people being polled.

[1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/21/u-s-jews-ha...

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#300

Post by ILMostro7 »

noduerme wrote: post #257
ILMostro7 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just mentioned a number of the double standards that exist netween the US and countries with immoral policies. There were uprisings in the ghettos. Granted, they didn't have enough time to form a democratically elected government. I am pointing out the irony of using anything similar as the Germans against a people who live in the most densely-populated, walled off land on earth...to say the least. Prolonging tha…

To respond more directly, I didn't mention any double standards between the US and countries with immoral policies. I'm not even sure what that means; it's a nonsensical statement, as double standards don't exist "between" countries, they only exist in terms of criticism. Specifically, they only exist where criticism is biased. To your second point, you say the Warsaw Ghetto wasn't able to hold elections to form a de…

Again, not disputing the history. Nevertheless, drawing a comparison to showcase the irony. Especially as the situation in Gaza and West Bank has been ongoing across multiple generations. Forgive the simplistic, cheeky remarks about not having enough time for elections. That's meant, once again, to draw attention to the length of time that Palestinians have endured this onslaught.

Go back to the beginning of Israel, check the terrorist activities of jewish groups. Ongoing settlements, landgrab, indiscriminate retaliatory measures--military or otherwise systemic in nature. Yet time and time again, no measure of accountability for a regional superpower.

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