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Seems fairly hypocritical in a number of ways. From our own companies actions, like Blackwater, to our allies actions, like Saudi Arabia, to our own government'

Seems fairly hypocritical in a number of ways. From our own companies actions, like Blackwater, to our allies actions, like Saudi Arabia, to our own government's actions, like "Collateral Murder" or events in Yemen. Why punish Israel?

smashah 6y ago
Israeli courts rejected the case to revoke NSOs export license which would then implicate the state itself. IANAL but I think the case can be made that the export of NSOs software is against US law and a violation of the Wassenaar Arrangement. See: 5D002.C.1 So in theory if Israel is allowing one of its companies to break US law then it would make sense to use that as a basis to stop aid to Israel which may be what OP is alluding to.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  Israel is not a signatory of the Wassenaar Arrangement, and I'm not sure how that would work under the law mentioned. Either way, it would be rather targeted enforcement considering what the Hacking Team apparently did with Italy signing the agreement.
  - smashah 6y ago
    I guess the question now is; under what jurisdiction does exploits based on WhatsApp and iOS source code lie? If I reverse engineered and sold exploits of American missile systems while in Somalia would that mean everything is A-OK? Idk. Again, not a lawyer.
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      Whether the actions are technically illegal doesn't really matter unless we are already punishing anyone that breaks those laws. In your hypothetical, we would be punishing Somalia when Italy did the exact same thing unpunished.
      - smashah 6y ago
        I forgot to add on my hypothetical that the Somalian government was protecting me. In which case it would be valid for people to be calling for sanctions let alone revocation of state aid. Iirc, hacking team dissolved or greatly downsized after their leak. I do not recall any cases against them for their export license to be revoked. I'm sure if the Italian courts rejected the case baselessly then there would be consequences (maybe further legal action/sanctions on specific individuals) as Italy does not operate with the same unique impunity that Israel does. The difference with Italy is that it does not receive state aid from the Americans. I'm sure if they were then people would be calling for cuts in a similar situation.
        boomboomsubban 6y ago
        >The difference with Italy is that it does not receive state aid from the Americans. I'm sure if they were then people would be calling for cuts in a similar situation. This isn't true. On top of the general disaster aid, including $10 million for COVID, we have seven US military bases in the country which accounts for millions a year in aid.
        smashah 6y ago
        Oh ok. Thanks for the correction. If the Italian government shields hacking team then I wouldn't be surprised if someone said that they should have that state aid cut.
        Daho0n 6y ago
        The US is by far the worst aid giver in the western world. Most so-called aid is "you can have this gift if you use it to buy X, Y or Z from businesses in the US". Look to Scandinavia and you'll see actual aid instead of (poorly) hidden state sponsoring of defense contractors. They even give more per capita than the US without those strings attached. US aid is embarrassing. Besides, US bases are not aid to the host country but aid by the host country to the US.
        6y ago
- PeterisP 6y ago
  Can you elaborate why do you think that export of NSOs software would be against US law, preferably which specific law? My first assumption is that the act isn't covered by any US law at all. For some analogy, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi does not violate any US law as the many US laws regarding murder (i.e. the separate criminal statutes of each of the US states plus any federal laws that may apply) do not regulate acts done by Saudi citizens to Saudi citizens in Istanbul. So the question becomes not about legality but about policy - whether the act harms US interests. And arguably selling of arms and tools by US allies (e.g. Israel) to US allies (e.g. Saudi Arabia) is not against US policy and thus there's no grounds to apply any sanctions - now, if NSO would sell the same things to Iran, that would be a different issue. USA could have standing if NSOs tools have been used to hack journalists in USA - but this is not what this article is about. If NSOs tools have been used to hack journalists in Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirate or Mexico, that's not a violation of USA laws; and if this has happened according to the legal permissions of the respective government (no matter how lax or arbitrary granting these legal permissions may be) then it's not a violation of any law; if we look from the purely legal perspective and not the moral one, it's perfectly legitimate for sovereign states to make laws that abuse their journalists as much as the state wants as long as it doesn't rise to the level of crimes against humanity. Almost any act or argument against a dictatorship abusing their people is inherently political, not legal. One incident where NSO may be in hot water is the hacking of Rania Dridi described in the original article if the events happened in London (it's unclear to me from the description) - then this may be cause to assert that NSO are complicit in violating UK law (but not USA law).
  - smashah 6y ago
    I'm not able to elaborate because I'm not a lawyer. I am speaking in more general terms regarding the history of NSO and pegasus. I am not certain if Jamal's phone itself was hacked but if it was then, in all likelihood, his phone was hacked while he was residing in the US. His compatriot, who lives in Canada, was definitely hacked using pegasus and that happened in Canada. I have no hope that the UK government would do anything about this unless the Qataris apply pressure.
sellyme 6y ago
> Why punish Israel? The whole "assist[ing] in getting journalists arrested/murdered/dismembered" thing still seems like pretty good justification to me. I'm not sure "but everyone else is doing it!" makes that acceptable. Requiring that we deal with every single one of those problems simultaneously else we shouldn't bother with any of them doesn't seem productive. I'm also not sure I'd describe the refusal to actively fund that behaviour as punishment, but I suppose that's somewhat beside the point.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  >Requiring that we deal with every single one of those problems simultaneously else we shouldn't bother with any of them doesn't seem productive. Then deal with the domestic ones first, the ones we have the most control over. People only care about these issues when the solution is "punish the country," a solution that likely causes more suffering than it stops.
  - bosswipe 6y ago
    Oh yea, NSO is totally not causing suffering. It's a benefit to the world, right?
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      No, punishing an entire country for the NSO's actions won't necessarily prevent more suffering than it causes.
OpieCunningham 6y ago
Everyone does it so I can too? You have to start somewhere. But yes, let’s also cut off all the others you mentioned.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  >You have to start somewhere Then start with yourself. I'm not condoning Israel's actions but punishing them for what we still do is tyranny.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    We can start with ourselves by not sending military aid to Israel.
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      Which doesn't necessarily prevent any journalist deaths, while we send many Yemeni journalists one step closer to starvation.
      - pessimizer 6y ago
        We can also stop selling arms to the Saudis and running logistics for them. That would save a lot of Yemenis from starvation.
        boomboomsubban 6y ago
        I get what you're trying to say, but specifically it's the US ongoing blockade putting their food supplies at risk, and more generally you are still punishing other countries for actions we engage in regularly. Start by prosecuting the CIA that plotted assassinating Assange.

smashah 6y ago

Israeli courts rejected the case to revoke NSOs export license which would then implicate the state itself. IANAL but I think the case can be made that the export of NSOs software is against US law and a violation of the Wassenaar Arrangement. See: 5D002.C.1 So in theory if Israel is allowing one of its companies to break US law then it would make sense to use that as a basis to stop aid to Israel which may be what OP is alluding to.

boomboomsubban 6y ago
Israel is not a signatory of the Wassenaar Arrangement, and I'm not sure how that would work under the law mentioned. Either way, it would be rather targeted enforcement considering what the Hacking Team apparently did with Italy signing the agreement.
- smashah 6y ago
  I guess the question now is; under what jurisdiction does exploits based on WhatsApp and iOS source code lie? If I reverse engineered and sold exploits of American missile systems while in Somalia would that mean everything is A-OK? Idk. Again, not a lawyer.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    Whether the actions are technically illegal doesn't really matter unless we are already punishing anyone that breaks those laws. In your hypothetical, we would be punishing Somalia when Italy did the exact same thing unpunished.
    - smashah 6y ago
      I forgot to add on my hypothetical that the Somalian government was protecting me. In which case it would be valid for people to be calling for sanctions let alone revocation of state aid. Iirc, hacking team dissolved or greatly downsized after their leak. I do not recall any cases against them for their export license to be revoked. I'm sure if the Italian courts rejected the case baselessly then there would be consequences (maybe further legal action/sanctions on specific individuals) as Italy does not operate with the same unique impunity that Israel does. The difference with Italy is that it does not receive state aid from the Americans. I'm sure if they were then people would be calling for cuts in a similar situation.
      - boomboomsubban 6y ago
        >The difference with Italy is that it does not receive state aid from the Americans. I'm sure if they were then people would be calling for cuts in a similar situation. This isn't true. On top of the general disaster aid, including $10 million for COVID, we have seven US military bases in the country which accounts for millions a year in aid.
        smashah 6y ago
        Oh ok. Thanks for the correction. If the Italian government shields hacking team then I wouldn't be surprised if someone said that they should have that state aid cut.
        Daho0n 6y ago
        The US is by far the worst aid giver in the western world. Most so-called aid is "you can have this gift if you use it to buy X, Y or Z from businesses in the US". Look to Scandinavia and you'll see actual aid instead of (poorly) hidden state sponsoring of defense contractors. They even give more per capita than the US without those strings attached. US aid is embarrassing. Besides, US bases are not aid to the host country but aid by the host country to the US.
        6y ago
PeterisP 6y ago
Can you elaborate why do you think that export of NSOs software would be against US law, preferably which specific law? My first assumption is that the act isn't covered by any US law at all. For some analogy, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi does not violate any US law as the many US laws regarding murder (i.e. the separate criminal statutes of each of the US states plus any federal laws that may apply) do not regulate acts done by Saudi citizens to Saudi citizens in Istanbul. So the question becomes not about legality but about policy - whether the act harms US interests. And arguably selling of arms and tools by US allies (e.g. Israel) to US allies (e.g. Saudi Arabia) is not against US policy and thus there's no grounds to apply any sanctions - now, if NSO would sell the same things to Iran, that would be a different issue. USA could have standing if NSOs tools have been used to hack journalists in USA - but this is not what this article is about. If NSOs tools have been used to hack journalists in Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirate or Mexico, that's not a violation of USA laws; and if this has happened according to the legal permissions of the respective government (no matter how lax or arbitrary granting these legal permissions may be) then it's not a violation of any law; if we look from the purely legal perspective and not the moral one, it's perfectly legitimate for sovereign states to make laws that abuse their journalists as much as the state wants as long as it doesn't rise to the level of crimes against humanity. Almost any act or argument against a dictatorship abusing their people is inherently political, not legal. One incident where NSO may be in hot water is the hacking of Rania Dridi described in the original article if the events happened in London (it's unclear to me from the description) - then this may be cause to assert that NSO are complicit in violating UK law (but not USA law).
- smashah 6y ago
  I'm not able to elaborate because I'm not a lawyer. I am speaking in more general terms regarding the history of NSO and pegasus. I am not certain if Jamal's phone itself was hacked but if it was then, in all likelihood, his phone was hacked while he was residing in the US. His compatriot, who lives in Canada, was definitely hacked using pegasus and that happened in Canada. I have no hope that the UK government would do anything about this unless the Qataris apply pressure.

sellyme 6y ago

> Why punish Israel? The whole "assist[ing] in getting journalists arrested/murdered/dismembered" thing still seems like pretty good justification to me. I'm not sure "but everyone else is doing it!" makes that acceptable. Requiring that we deal with every single one of those problems simultaneously else we shouldn't bother with any of them doesn't seem productive. I'm also not sure I'd describe the refusal to actively fund that behaviour as punishment, but I suppose that's somewhat beside the point.

boomboomsubban 6y ago
>Requiring that we deal with every single one of those problems simultaneously else we shouldn't bother with any of them doesn't seem productive. Then deal with the domestic ones first, the ones we have the most control over. People only care about these issues when the solution is "punish the country," a solution that likely causes more suffering than it stops.
- bosswipe 6y ago
  Oh yea, NSO is totally not causing suffering. It's a benefit to the world, right?
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    No, punishing an entire country for the NSO's actions won't necessarily prevent more suffering than it causes.

OpieCunningham 6y ago

Everyone does it so I can too? You have to start somewhere. But yes, let’s also cut off all the others you mentioned.

boomboomsubban 6y ago
>You have to start somewhere Then start with yourself. I'm not condoning Israel's actions but punishing them for what we still do is tyranny.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  We can start with ourselves by not sending military aid to Israel.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    Which doesn't necessarily prevent any journalist deaths, while we send many Yemeni journalists one step closer to starvation.
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      We can also stop selling arms to the Saudis and running logistics for them. That would save a lot of Yemenis from starvation.
      - boomboomsubban 6y ago
        I get what you're trying to say, but specifically it's the US ongoing blockade putting their food supplies at risk, and more generally you are still punishing other countries for actions we engage in regularly. Start by prosecuting the CIA that plotted assassinating Assange.