A group of U.S. lawmakers is asking the Treasury Department and State Department to sanction Israeli spyware firm NSO Group and three other foreign surveillance companies they say helped authoritarian governments commit human rights abuses.
Faraan: Their letter sent late Tuesday and seen by Reuters also asks for sanctions on top executives at NSO, the United Arab Emirates cybersecurity company DarkMatter, and European online bulk surveillance companies Nexa Technologies and Trovicor.
The lawmakers asked for Global Magnitsky sanctions, which punishes those who are accused of enabling human rights abuses by freezing bank accounts and banning travel to the United States.
The lawmakers said the spyware industry relies on U.S. investment and banks. “To meaningfully punish them and send a clear signal to the surveillance technology industry, the U.S. government should deploy financial sanctions,” they wrote.
The letter says the companies facilitated the “disappearance, torture and murder of human rights activists and journalists.” Surveillance firms have drawn increasing scrutiny from Washington as a barrage of media reports have tied them to human rights abuses.
“These surveillance mercenaries sold their services to authoritarian regimes with long records of human rights abuses, giving vast spying powers to tyrants,” Wyden told Reuters. “Predictably, those nations used surveillance tools to lock up, torture and murder reporters and human rights advocates. The Biden administration has the chance to turn off the spigot of American dollars and help put them out of business for good.”
In November, the Commerce Department put NSO on the so-called Entity List, prohibiting U.S. suppliers from selling software or services to the Israeli spyware maker without getting special permission.
Apple sued NSO Group in November, saying that it violated U.S. laws by breaking into the software installed on iPhones.
