4 ms·
Suing the company which developed a tool rather than the organization which used the tool seems strange.
by i_am_proteus 7y ago
Suing the company which developed a tool rather than the organization which used the tool seems strange.
- seieste 7y agoI think there are three reasons it makes sense: 1. The company enabled several different organizations to spy on dissidents (it’s easier to sue one than many) 2. The company advertises its services to be used as such, and 3. It’s easier to sue a company than a country, and much easier to sue a company in Israel than to sue the UAE in a UAE court
- GavinMcG 7y agoI think it seems strange where we imagine that tools are neutral. But they aren't, necessarily, and especially if the organization/developers knew they were building something to be used unlawfully, it's reasonable to hold them accountable. Taxi rides are generally neutral, too, but if someone hops into your taxi, asks you to drive to the bank and wait, and tells you outright that they're going to rob the place, that makes you a getaway driver with a taxi, not a taxi driver who happens to have a guilty client.
- testvox 7y agoBut did they make it for an unlawful purpose? Most countries have legal provisions to allow police or foreign intelligence to hack into phones. Could they have been selling these tools for those purposes and someone misused them?
- detaro 7y agoAnd should they have stopped once it became known it got misused? All interesting questions for a court and the public to ponder.
- GavinMcG 7y agoWell that's partly why you file a lawsuit. If you have a reasonable belief that the answer to that is yes, a lawsuit provides a process for confirming whether and to what extent it's true.
- nocturnial 7y agoWhy is this strange? You sue the company making the tool then they tell you in court it's not them but rather entity X who abused it and give you the documents to prove it. Then you sue entity X.