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WASHINGTON — The FBI reported in a 2018 letter to the Israeli government that it had acquired the notorious hacking tool Pegasus to collect data from mobile phones to aid ongoing investigations; this is the clearest documentary evidence to date that the bureau is weighing up the use of spyware as a tool. law enforcement forces.
The FBI’s explanation of the Pegasus’ intended use came in a letter from a senior FBI official to the Israeli Ministry of Defense and reviewed by The New York Times. Pegasus is manufactured by NSO Group, an Israeli firm that must obtain approval from the Israeli government before selling its pirated vehicle to a foreign government.
In a 2018 letter written by an official from the FBI’s operational technology division, the bureau said it intended to use Pegasus “to collect data from mobile devices for the prevention and investigation of crime and terrorism in accordance with privacy and national security laws.” ”
Times appeared in January He said the FBI bought Pegasus in 2018 and tested the spyware at a secret facility in New Jersey over the next two years.
Since the article was published, FBI officials admitted they were considering commissioning Pegasus, but they stressed that the bureau purchased the espionage tool primarily to test and evaluate it—partly to assess how enemies might use it. They said the bureau never used spyware in any of their operations.
During a congressional hearing in March, FBI director Christopher A. Wray said the bureau had purchased a “limited license” for testing and evaluation. Could they one day be used legally, but more importantly, what are the safety concerns these products pose?
“So it’s very different from using anyone to research,” he said.
The Times explained that the FBI also received a demonstration by the NSO of the Phantom, a different hacking tool that can do what Pegasus can’t – target and infiltrate US cell phone numbers. After the show, government lawyers spent years debating whether to buy the Phantom. Until last summer, the FBI and the Justice Department decided not to use NSO hacking tools in operations.
The FBI has paid NSO about $5 million since the bureau first purchased Pegasus.
The Times sued the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act for clerical documents regarding the purchase, testing, and possible distribution of NSO spyware tools. At a court hearing last month, a federal judge set a deadline of August 31 for the FBI to submit or humiliate all relevant documents. Government lawyers said the bureau had so far identified more than 400 pages of documents responding to the request.
The FBI’s letter to NSO, dated December 4, 2018, states that “The United States government will not, under any circumstances, sell, deliver, or otherwise transfer to another party without the prior consent of the Israeli government.”
FBI spokeswoman Cathy L. Milhoan said the bureau “works diligently to stay abreast of emerging technologies and trade.”
“The FBI has purchased a license to investigate possible future legal use of the NSO product and potential safety concerns posed by the product,” he continued. “As part of this process, the FBI met the requirements of the Israel Export Control Agency. After testing and evaluation, the FBI chose not to use the product operationally in any investigation.”
A January Times article revealed that the CIA arranged and paid for the Djibouti government’s purchase of Pegasus in 2018 to assist its government in counter-terrorism operations, despite longstanding concerns about human rights abuses there.
Pegasus is a so-called zero-click hacking tool – it can remotely extract everything from the target’s cell phone, including photos, contacts, messages and video recordings, without the user needing to click a phishing link to gain remote access to Pegasus. It also turns phones into surveillance and covert recording devices, allowing the phone to spy on its owner.
NSO has sold Pegasus to dozens of countries that use spyware as part of investigations into terror networks, pedophile gangs and drug gangs. But it has also been abused by authoritarian and democratic governments to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents.
On Tuesday, the head of the Spanish intelligence agency overthrown After recent revelations by Spanish authorities that they were both the victims of the Pegasus spyware deployed.
The dismissal of official Paz Esteban comes days after the Spanish government announced that the mobile phones of top Spanish officials, including Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Defense Minister Margarita Robles, were hacked by Pegasus last year. It has also recently emerged that the Spanish government has used Pegasus to hack into the cell phones of Catalan separatist politicians.
Israel used the tool as a bargaining chip in diplomatic negotiations, particularly in secret negotiations that led to the so-called Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and many of its historic Arab adversaries.
In November, the Biden administration put NSO and another Israeli firm in a deal. “black list” of companies They are prohibited from doing business with American companies. The Commerce Department said the companies’ spyware tools “allow foreign governments to carry out transnational repression, the practice of authoritarian governments targeting dissidents, journalists and activists outside their sovereign borders to silence dissent.”
Mark Mazetti reported from Washington and Ron Bergman from Tel Aviv.
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