White House Exec Order Bans Government Use of Most Commercial Spyware
The US government just shut the door to many spyware salespeople, courtesy of a new White House executive order(Opens in a new window) that bans federal agencies from using commercial spyware that threatens either national security or human rights.
The Biden administration announced the order Monday(Opens in a new window), calling it a defensive imperative and a key part of its attempts to defend democratic values.
“Foreign governments and persons have deployed commercial spyware against United States government institutions, personnel, information, and information systems,” the order states. The phones of more than 50 government employees stationed overseas have been targeted by these hacking tools, an administration official tells The Washington Post(Opens in a new window).
The order further notes how undemocratic regimes go after their own citizens with these tools to “target and intimidate perceived opponents; curb dissent; limit freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, or association,” among other abuses.
Accordingly, the order says executive-branch departments and agencies “shall not make operational use of commercial spyware” if it either “poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government” or “poses significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person.”
The phrase “NSO Group” appears nowhere in the text, but that Israeli spyware vendor is the obvious target of this shunning strategy. NSO’s sales of its Pegasus smartphone-hacking tool to such authoritarian customers as the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—regimes that reportedly used it to target human-rights activists and journalists as well as some US allies—have made it one
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