U. S. intelligence officials reportedly said that U. S. The U. S. subsidized the efforts through a U. S. Army contractor. The U. S. government to buy NSO Group, the debatable Israeli spyware company.
The executives of the businessman L3Harris have made “numerous” visits to Israel in recent months to secretly negotiate the acquisition, expressing the supportive stance of the US intelligence community. The New York Times reported Sunday, mentioning five other people familiar with the matter. .
The position was conveyed without the wisdom of Biden administration officials, who were shocked and furious when the negotiations leaked to the press last month.
L3Harris then informed management that he was finishing talks to win the NGO group, several other familiar people told the Times that there was still an effort to restart negotiations.
NSO’s flagship spying software, Pegasus, is considered one of the most resilient cyber surveillance equipment on the market, giving operators the ability to control a target’s phone well, download all information from the device, and turn it on. your camera or microphone without the user’s knowledge.
The U. S. Department of Commerce The U. S. added NSO Group to its entity list last November, preventing it from obtaining the technology from the U. S. U. S. software for dubious purposes.
L3Harris, NSO, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Commerce Department and the Department of Defense rejected requests for comment on the story.
A failure of the talks may cause disorder for the NSO group, which has been shocked since it was blacklisted by the US. The U. S. Government,” banned U. S. corporations from doing business with the Israeli company.
The NYT reported, however, that L3Harris representatives told Israeli negotiators that the U. S. government would be able to do so. The U. S. had signed the acquisition talks. Amir Eshel, director general of the Ministry of Defense, who must approve those sales, attended at least one of those meetings.
According to last month’s joint report revealing negotiations via The Guardian, The Washington Post and Haaretz, it is possible that the potential deal also included the transfer of some of the Israeli company’s staff to the American contractor. However, this report indicates that the sale only by Pegasus technology, and not the entire company.
A user familiar with the conversations told the media that if a deal were signed, the list of consumers approved for the generation would be particularly narrowed and would probably only come with the so-called “five eyes” alliance: the United States. , the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
The White House said it had been concerned “in some way about this potentially reported transaction. “
The senior White House official also said the U. S. government has been able to. . . UU. ” opposes efforts through foreign corporations to circumvent U. S. export measures or sanctions. In the U. S. , adding a strike to the U. S. Department of Commerce’s list of entities. U. S. for malicious cyber activities. “
The U. S. Department of Commerce The U. S. added NSO Group to its entity list last November, preventing it from obtaining technology from the U. S. U. S. for dubious purposes.
Also last month, it was reported that Israel was pressuring Biden’s management to remove the company from the blacklist. News site Axios said that while the Israeli government first rejected NSO’s request to exert pressure on Biden’s management on its behalf, it has since done so. been convinced to help the company. The report cites three unnamed U. S. and Israeli officials.
Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, India and the United Arab Emirates reportedly bought the NSO group’s Pegasus program to target activists, political dissidents and journalists, adding that Morocco is targeting French President Emmanuel Macron. Il also allegedly used to track down journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who he then murdered through Saudi intelligence agents. The NSO denied the allegations of wrongdoing.
According to a recent report, the FBI thought about hiring Pegasus to collect phone data for ongoing investigations, but ultimately failed to do so.
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