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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

#301

Post by heavenlyblue »

enkid wrote: post #241
bigiain wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm only aware of one case where the US government, without warrant, actively hacked its own citizens using a 0day It’s perhaps a bit broader than your definition there, but illegal exploitation and subsequent whitewashing of personal data by law enforcement is common enough that is has a name. Parallel construction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction Another point. For me, being caught zero time…

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.

I also like how they are basically admitting that the drug lords can basically use police force to bully their own opponents by acting "as if" they were the anonymous informers of drug trafficking.

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

#302

Post by hkt »

hunterb123 wrote: post #132
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ignoring some minor details, like that Israel had to fight some real frigging wars over its bare existence, and is still facing a regional power that calls for its extinction. Looks like Israel isn't getting too much love, at least not here at HN. I maintain that we in Israel are still a very normal, western type society, if you take all these rather extreme circumstances into consideration (and, in addition,…

If it's any consolation, these comments here do not reflect a general opinion and liberal leaning places seem to have this anti-Israel agenda, and it seems to be more prominent recently. Maybe I'm just paying more attention. That's not to say everything is perfect, no country is. But in perspective of everyone's actions in the region I support Israel overall. I don't want to get into a political flamewar, just wanted…

RE the apartheid point, this isn't western liberals, it is Israeli human rights organisations: https://www.btselem.org/apartheid

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

#303

Post by tsimionescu »

weatherlite wrote: post #287
tsimionescu wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is this: for whatever reason (mostly, as you say, simple military inferiority), Hamas is no longer harming Israel to a great extent, and hasn't been in the last decade. Why then is Israel still harming Palestinians at the same rate it was back when Hamas was a major threat? The only reasonable conclusion is that Israel's attacks on Palestinian people are not related to Hamas attacks on Israeli people, they…

> The point is this: for whatever reason (mostly, as you say, simple military inferiority), Hamas is no longer harming Israel to a great extent, and hasn't been in the last decade. Why then is Israel still harming Palestinians at the same rate it was back when Hamas was a major threat? Hamas can't get a lot of kills because Israelis run to shelters, they have a very advanced bomb sirens and radars. Without this I'm s…

Do you think that if Hamas and all the other militant/terrorist organizations in Gaza surrendered all of their weapons to Israel tomorrow, conditions would improve for Palestinians? Do you think Israel would accept mass Palestinian (Arab) immigration? Do you think Israel would release its control of Palestine's borders? Do you think Israel would stop evicting Arabs and establishing Jewish colonies in Palestine?

If you think all of these things, then you should look at the history of occupied territories much more closely.

> I wonder what the UK or US would do if the kids in London and NY would need to run to shelters a few times a week because of missile attacks. I'm sure they would seek to proportionally kill just as many terrorists right?

The US and UK are farthest from my mind in terms of potential models of good behavior in such situations. They have been some of the worse offenders in history in terms of unequal retaliation - the US's ongoing twenty-year plus war in the Middle East as punishment for 9/11 being one of the prime examples of unacceptable behavior in recent memory.

> It's not as if Israel can just decide to absorb this and do nothing, what country would do nothing in such a state?

Again, Israel is the original aggressor here. This fact is of utmost importance - Hamas was born in response to Israeli aggression, not the other way around. Israel could have chosen not to occupy the Gaza strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem in 1967. Even once they chose to occupy these territories, they could have chosen to integrate them as parts of Israel, and offer citizenship to their occupants - but of course, this would have meant that Israel was no longer a Jewish state, having a majority Arab population, which was deemed (and is still deemed) unacceptable.

Would the world be a better place had the Palestinians chosen to sacrifice their own interests and accepted to live as sub-humans under Israeli military rule, without retaliating against Israelis (remember, this was the state of Gaza and the other Palestinian territories between 1967 and 1994)? Yes, undoubtedly. Is it fair and reasonable to ask such a thing of an entire people? I certainly don't believe so.

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

#304

Post by throwaw10293847 »

james-redwood wrote: post #30
throwaw10293847 wrote: post #16

Comment from duplicate submission: Some of the companies in the field, in contrast to NSO, do have ethics committees to filter out obviously bad clients. Once when guidelines were described to engineers a question was asked: Would Israel itself pass the ethics committee check? The answer was "No. But..."

Could you source that anecdote?

I was working at one of the cybersecurity companies and "not being another NSO" was part of internal discussion.

I won't name the company and use temp account deliberately for this comment.

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

#305

Post by benja123 »

woodruffw wrote: post #299
benja123 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stat…

Most of the polls in the US tend to be done by American Jewish organizations such as the AJC. The AJC polls actually specifically ask about support for Israel.

Regardless all of the major Jewish denominations in the US (reform movement, conservative movement, modern orthodox and even most of the heredi movements these days) officially support Zionism. Now you have individuals in each group who may describe themselves as anti-Zionist, but it is a very small minority (although growing in the reform movement).

Among non affiliated Jews the percentage of anti Israel/anti Zionist Jews may be a bit higher but it is still pretty low. It’s no where near millions (you only have 6.5 Million Jews in the US).

Now none of the above means that there is not a large segment of pro Israel, American Zionist Jews who are against a lot of the current and previous governments policies when it comes to the West Bank and Gaza (or in general).

Heck I am a Canadian born Israeli, who is personally against a lot of the policies of the Israeli government. I quite often cringe at some of the comments and actions of some of our politicians. On the bright side it helps me chose who not to vote for

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

#306

Post by boston_clone »

etripe wrote: post #270
Terry_Roll wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

> The Security Services has to protect a country Implied is the statement that the end justifies the means. But how do you weigh the proportionality of measures taken? Do you adopt a utilitarian point of view, looking at, say, deaths prevented? Is anything game, or should agencies be expected to uphold a code of conduct, bill of rights or exclude entire categories of information? How do you assess what is or isn't a…

Of the roughly dozen questions, I'll try and hit a few points directly to sum up where I believe we ought to be, based on my relatively narrow understanding of US political sciences - please note that many answers to your questions will vary by country and their own democratic maturity.

While I don't agree that there was an implication of the end justifying any type of means, it seems we have already taken a utilitarian point of view. In short, the intelligence community is not allowed to circumvent the constitution and relevant laws (i.e. deprive citizens of their established rights); this is largely in part from the Fourth Amendment (unlawful search or seizure). As legal precedent is an inherently moving goalpost vis-a-vis judicial interpretation, this is a continuous battle in which citizens are aided by transparency and scrutiny of ongoing government programs.

One need not look any farther than the Snowden cases to realize that there is still a strong clinging to this ideal of public transparency, as well as the mountain of evidence that the government ought to be audited to prevent, or at least cease, illegal operations such as PRISM. Judges watch the watchmen - largely in closed-door FISA court hearings, it seems. This bothers me.

However, to think that there is zero benefit to these programs is parallel to naively thinking they are wholly good. I'm willing to wager that there are physical / kinetic and digital events that occur every week which would terrify the average citizen. Transparency is good, don't get me wrong - but there is only so much that some can stomach before feeling ill.

Stay involved in local / state / federal politics. Make noise about things you feel are unjust. Asking good questions is a good thing, but action is what makes the gears turn.

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

#307

Post by amitport »

denton-scratch wrote: post #288
yonixw wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like after Hamas fighters took control of the Gaza Strip and removed Fatah officials [0]. So who destroyed their government and effectively haven't allowed any election since? Hamas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaza_(2007)

That's not what happened. There was a fair election in Gaza, which was won by Hamas. The new government was perfectly within its rights to remove Fatah officials. Fatah launched an armed rebellion in Gaza. Wikipedia is hopelessly unreliable on anything to do with the Middle East. -> Didn't read.

They removed-removed them. As violently murdered many. You don't have to trust Wikipedia it was covered by many news site at the time. Even aljazheera.

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

#308

Post by weatherlight »

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…

Sure, you can go to Cyprus. but what if an Israeli want to marry a person from the West Bank... will the state of Israel approve of that person from the West Bank to fly to Cyprus? Nope. Not a chance in hell.

I've been to Israel a bunch of times. I've also been to Palestine and Lebanon. Israel isn't a "secular western state." For one, Israel does not have a written constitution, even though according to the Proclamation of Independence a constituent assembly should have prepared a constitution by October 1, 1948. That delay in the preparation of a constitution resulted primarily from problems that emerged against the background of the alleged clash between a secular constitution and the Halacha (the Jewish religious law).

So even from a legal perspective, Israel can't decide whether it's a secular or religious state.

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

#309

Post by weatherlight »

helge9210 wrote: post #294
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

SHAS have been the kingmakers in more than few elections.

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

#310

Post by BiteCode_dev »

PeterisP wrote: post #222
dilap wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the ability exists, what's to stop them from using it? Good manners? And what's the incentive for someone to tell us, if they are? Become another Snowden or Assange or Manning? Not a very compelling outcome...

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…

A fact doesn't need to be usable as evidence in court to be usable for blackmail.

Anything that can make your life harder will do. They can find something that:

- will put a you in a difficult position with friends and family

- break trust in a business relationship

- destroy your reputation in regard of the public

- trigger costly investigations from a 3rd party

- pressure you and take your energy, moral, money, time and health in the process

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