Very few people will have bothered following the machinations of Israeli company NSO which has been in the international news for the last year as an enabler of massive human rights abuses around the world.
The company developed a high-tech cyberware spy programme, called Pegasus, which can consistently and reliably crack encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone. It began selling the programme in 2011, with sales approved by the Israeli government, to government and law enforcement agencies around the world.
NSO charged $650,000, plus a $500,000 setup fee for the ability to invisibly spy on 10 cell phones. The software can capture every keystroke, sound, message and location on the phone and can turn the phone into a secret recording device.
The recent publicity however has revealed that Pegasus has been used around the world to target the likes of dissidents, political activists and independent journalists. A good backgrounder on this from the New York Times last week includes the following:
“Mexico deployed the software not just against gangsters but also against journalists and political dissidents. The United Arab Emirates used the software to hack the phone of a civil rights activist whom the government threw in jail. Saudi Arabia used it against women’s rights activists and, according to a lawsuit filed by a Saudi dissident, to spy on communications with Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, whom Saudi operatives killed and dismembered in Istanbul in 2018.
None of this prevented new customers from approaching NSO, including the United States. The details of the F.B.I.’s purchase and testing of Pegasus have never before been made public. Additionally, the same year that Khashoggi was killed, the Central Intelligence Agency arranged and paid for the government of Djibouti to acquire Pegasus to assist the American ally in combating terrorism, despite longstanding concerns about human rights abuses there, including the persecution of journalists and the torture of government opponents. The D.E.A., the Secret Service and the U.S. military’s Africa Command had all held discussions with NSO”
Israel itself used the software to spy on political activists and opponents of former Prime Minister Netanyahu. Elsewhere Israel approved the selling of the software to hard-right, human rights abusing countries around the world to the point the US could no longer ignore the ramifications and put the company on a blacklist.
But the US, which worked closely with NSO over many years, wants to control and use the software itself. The US blacklisting will last long enough for US investors to purchase NSO and it will be back to business as usual with the US calling the tune.
The story linked to above also contains this paragraph:
“The plan outlines cancelling or restricting most of the company’s former clients, effectively bringing the company’s revenues to zero. Instead of the current 37 clients, the company will reduce its sales to only five clients: the Five Eyes Anglosphere intelligence alliance of New Zealand, the United States, Australia, Great Britain and Canada. The company would initially focus on defensive cyber products as part of its rebranding effort”
(In this context it’s ironic that elsewhere there are discussions to turn the five eyes into seven eyes with the addition of Israel and Japan.)
While we are part of this five-eyes alliance we will NEVER have an independent foreign policy and unfortunately the Labour government is moving us closer to the US and its sabre-rattling around the world.
We have become only too willing to call out human rights abuses by the enemies of the US such as China and Russia, which we should be doing anyway, but we have been complicit through silence with human rights abuses committed by the friends of the US such as Israel, Indonesia and India.
We should have no part of any US alliance. We should play to our strengths as a small country which should involve speaking up with principle and conviction against human rights abuses anywhere.
While the USA reigns supreme, no country has truly independent foreign policy, or local policy for that matter. And the US government is merely the primary vehicle of the corporate/ruling class. The best we can do is to stop cheerleading or participating in, their corporate-led, government-enacted shenanigans.
bbbbbuuttttt chinese surveillance
There is more to this story.
Jeff Halper, in his book War Against the People (Pluto Press 2015) wrote that the IDF (Israel Defence Force) has a facility in the Negev that is part of the “network of Echelon satellite stations initially set up in the 1960s by the US, Britain , Canada, Australia and NZ.”
A year or so ago, I emailed Nicky Hager to inform him about what Jeff Halper revealed. Nicky replied by asking me where I thought Jeff got his information. So I went back to Jeff’s article and this time looked up a footnote.
The footnote cites : Nicky Hager “Omniscient Ears” Le Monde Diplomatique Sept 4, 2010
I went to the Le Monde site and sure enough there was an article by Nicky Hager
Desert Base listens to the World Talking
“Israel’s omniscient ears
Israel’s Urim base in the Negev desert is among the most important and powerful intelligence gathering sites in the world. Yet, until now, its eavesdropping has gone entirely unmentioned”
Anyway, even without this additional information, I agree with John that NZ should withdraw from military and espionage entanglements . They prevent us from having policies based on freedom and justice for all.”
We should all keep wearing masks and reinvent ourselves by ‘transitioning’ to an alter ego or just tear the system down.
” We should have no part of any US alliance. We should play to our strengths as a small country which should involve speaking up with principle and conviction against human rights abuses anywhere ”
Yes John but we have capitulated to the demands of the corporate world empire and as we lay down to as ( Key did and sign away our sovereign independence to wage his own personal and political offensive ) the boot is firmly on our throats.
I am pessimistic that we will ever be able to return to the sense of pride and self respect of the 1980s when we said no to America and its nuclear weapons and yes to our own independent foreign policy and not as Lange said go to Washington to grovel.
But grovel we did after being cast adrift by our so called friends and allies and the conservatives here and in the Nasty Natz begged to be let back in to the ” gang ” and like Brash came close to doing while wearing his mask would have pushed a referendum dressed up with American and Crosby Textor propaganda to try and remove the anti nuclear legislation. Crosby Textor of course were responsible for the Kiwi Iwi campaign and identifying other issues to promote a hard right agenda.
Sad but insightful post John and it’s ironic that after escaping Nazi occupied Europe the Jews Israeli state that was created to give them a nation of their own is as evil as the persecuting Nazis they were running from.
You’re dreaming Mosa. So if China wanted to be aggressive and cut of sea transport access you wouldn’t grovel to the US , Australia or anyone else for assistance. And don’t talk about self sufficient clap trap. To do that we still need steel and other raw materials. We are a little fly shit on the arse of the world who won’t even pull our weight with defence spending and that has already annoyed our closest allies, Australia being the closest. You can live in your little non grovelling bubble Mosa but I’m happy to keep onside with the US and Australia.
Yes agree self sufficient talk pie in the sky unless we wish to become North Korea two.
Comparing Israel with Nazis is disgusting.
” Yes agree self sufficient talk pie in the sky unless we wish to become North Korea two ”
What a dumb comment to make like we would ever be another North Korea !
It didn’t happen post 1985 and most New Zealanders were proud that we decide who and what we let in to our sovereign territory and we continue to trade despite threats of blockades and American temper tantrums we carried on as before but determining the right to make our own independent foreign policy that won us huge respect in a number of nations who also survived without a military alliance with the Americans or anyone else.
I guess its pride and self respect that endured long after ANZUS was over and the Americans let us back in with our nuclear free legislation still intact.
in the event of actual hostilities we will be cast adrift or become a UKlite floating aircraft carrier administered by the aussie military…..don’t kid y’self with fond ANZAC myths
It’s literally impossible isolating our selves from America or anyone under even basic human rights like to free movement. I mean look at the way Australia closes itself off from New Zealand. I’m not doing it.
I am not into conspiracy but covid has allowed mst governments to get away with taking away freedoms we thought we had .
It is a lesson to be aware and question authority as a freedom lost can be hard to win back
…”NSO charged $650,000, plus a $500,000 setup fee for the ability to invisibly spy on 10 cell phones”…
Sorry John , but I can make $700.00 for every bullhide I tan. Maybe not as much but for a country guy, that’s good dosh. Its a slow burner tho, organic things take time. Weeks in fact.
But here’s where it gets serous;
…”While we are part of this five-eyes alliance we will NEVER have an independent foreign policy and unfortunately the Labour government is moving us closer to the US and its sabre-rattling around the world. We have become only too willing to call out human rights abuses by the enemies of the US such as China and Russia, which we should be doing anyway, but we have been complicit through silence with human rights abuses committed by the friends of the US such as Israel, Indonesia and India”…
————–
And for exactly that reason I believe we should go it alone. We don’t need the underconfident shitters. What we need is an enhanced navy and airforce that is far reaching, with a purely defensive army. We are a maritime nation. Our interests are in the South Pacific. NOT Asia. With an enhanced navy and airforce we could service our fisheries and provide disaster relief thus providing a bulwark against China, and the foreign adventures of the USA. We should be an aggressive trading nation, and that includes the UK, Europe up to and including Russia. Forego free trade deals. Play one off against the other. Do a Sukarno/ Suharto.
Do as Chris Trotter has said the Chinese have done; pass legislation that requires two MP’s to sit on the foreign corporates boards, [ after 5 years increase that number to 4, another 5 years to 6] We would soon get rid of the leechers and foreign far right capitalists.
Goodbye Australian banks which siphon off $6 billion dollars each year out of the NZ economy. [$6 billion? – think how many houses that would build !] Free ourselves from these leechers,… and then…,and only then, – would we be ready for self determination and an exclusive foreign policy which excludes the 5 eyes. A social democratic nationalistic govt [ Mickey Savage, Kirk, Muldoon? ] that genuinely looks out for the best interests of the nation and people of New Zealand.
THAT,… is when we will shed off all these hooks we have allowed to hold us back for the last 36 years of treasonous neo liberalism imported from the UK and the USA. And their Mont Pelerin vampiric masters. Again ,… f@ck em.
” And don’t talk about self sufficient clap trap ”
I didn’t I gave my opinion about pride and self respect that we achieved when we stood up and said we don’t want nuclear weapons in our sovereign territory and that we decide without interference where we stand and not play the fiddle to someone else’s tune.
As for China they are not as stupid as you think and any action like what you are suggesting would harm them more than our little ” fly shit on the arse of the world ” your words and that statement says a lot about how you view your own country.
I am not going to grovel because its people like yourself that have already done that so its a moot point.
Australia is not an ally of New Zealand they just use us when it suits their interests and an ally does not treat its allied countries citizens as second class by taking their taxes paid and denying them state support while working there.
Defence spending should be spent like it is now on providing assistance to our pacific neighbours while Australia spends its money at the behest of America. We should have one of the best Navies in the world as a small island nation we should invest in our own protection and use it if necessary and provide surveillance and protecting our territorial waters from any illegal activity.