Israel Update Extra- Israeli Police Use NSO Software

What are the implications of the technology and the lessons for the future

For the past week, Israel has been amidst a rapidly expanding political/legal scandal, after the Israeli newspaper “Calcalist” printed a series of articles on the improper use of Pegasus, NSO’s spying software by Israeli police. Pegasus not only penetrates any targeted iPhone, but is able to seamlessly extract all of the data on that phone, regardless of what app was used.

When the first article was printed, police immediately defended their actions, stating they did nothing illegal. However, by last weekend, that claim was shown to be patently false, as police admitted it was possible that mistakes were made in a few cases. The next morning, the paper printed a new article. It listed numerous individuals who had been targets of a Pegasus attack, including high-ranking government officials, protest leaders, mayors, and witnesses in the trial of former Prime Minister Netanyahu. Multiple Ministers in the current government (widespread use of Pegasus occurred during the previous government) called the revelation “an earthquake,” and there were immediate cries for a national Committee of Inquiry, which by all indications will be established.

The old saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” aptly describes the story of NSO’s Pegasus software. Pegasus software, developed by alumni of Israel’s intelligence services, is designed to penetrate the cyber defenses of today's smartphones and grant the user access to the information on the phone. The original goal of the developers was to provide governments the ability to track terrorists, and other evil actors, on the world stage. The software engineers, recruited directly out of the army, were promised they could continue the important work they were doing in the military at a higher salary and better work conditions.

The coders succeeded, and soon, NSO possessed the most potent non-governmental tool in the world, which it planned to sell to governments to aid in their fight against terror and the drug trade. Moreover, NSO believed that since it was not just selling a piece of software, but a tool controlled by the company, it could ensure that its software was never used against targets it should not be.

Unfortunately for NSO, identifying “appropriate targets” turned out to be a slippery slope. When you sell extremely powerful tools to governments, the temptation to weaponize the software against opponents of the government becomes too great. As a result, Pegasus software was deployed against inappropriate targets, numerous times around the world.

Initially, Israel only sold the Pegasus software to governments fighting terrorists. Unfortunately, the tool is so good that many governments wanted to get their hands on it. So, the Netanyahu government began using the Pegasus software as a powerful tool in their diplomatic arsenal. Countries, such as Saudi Arabia, with whom Israel does not have relations, became an NSO customer.

Over the past few months, revelations have surfaced disclosing the various foreign government's improper use of the software against political opponents, journalists, and third-party governments. In Israel, these revelations were relegated to one-hour news stories that gained little traction. Even after the US government (which itself had been testing the software for use by the FBI) sanctioned NSO and designated it, along with a similar Israeli company, as acting against the interest of the United States, the story received minimal attention in Israel.

However, now that it has become clear the police used Pegasus against the Israeli public, the criticism of police has swiftly reached a crescendo. It should be noted that the Israeli legal system provides particularly fertile terrain for the misuse of technology. Israeli criminal law lacks any concept of “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree”. In the US, if any evidence is obtained illegally, not only is that evidence deemed inadmissible, but so is any information that might have resulted from the illegal search or wiretap. In contrast, in Israel the cost of cutting legal corners is low. The police may receive a reprimand from the courts but if the information is good it can be used. Moreover, with the powerful tools Pegasus provides, the potential benefit is often too tempting.

Throughout history, it has been a given that the majority of technologies ever developed routinely end up being used in unexpected, negative ways. I recently interviewed Gil Perry, CEO of D-ID, developers of a remarkable product that can turn a static picture of someone long gone, into a live 3d rendering. As a history educator, my mind was ripe with the tremendous potential of such a tool.

However, in my discussion with Perry, I kept returning to the same question — How do you stop your product from being used for evil? For example, how do you prevent your product from being utilized to develop a video of people making statements they never said? Perry assured me they have safeties in place to ensure their software cannot be used to make deep fakes. As he uttered that claim, I remembered the NSO spokesperson alleging they had controls in place to ensure their software would not be misused.

The one solution to prevent the misuse of technology is deterrence. Legal oversight needs to be ahead of the technology. Misuse of surveillance technology by police, or other government officials, must be a crime punishable by substantial jail time — likewise, with anyone who produces a deep fake video or other rendering. While people have freedom of [personal] expression, they are not free to make other people, dead or alive, recite statements they did not actually say.

The Police/NSO scandal is the latest case in misuse of technology initially developed for good. In Israel, it is too early to know the full implications of wrongdoing in this crisis. What this embarrassment has done is undermine an already brittle faith in government, already severely tested during Covid.

What is clear, as technology gets ever more powerful, both at violating our privacy and altering what we believe to be our reality, the need for new laws to meet the challenges of this new age is incontrovertible.