Subversion Inc: The Age of Private Espionag

- Maret 12, 2023

Over the last decade, a sophisticated and lucrative industry has sprung up that puts potent surveillance and intelligence capabilities in the hands of a wide range of private actors. Clandestine influence operations, targeted espionage against civil society, and political subversion—an organized activity whereby the decay of legitimate political institutions is deliberately and surreptitiously seeded—are easier to undertake than ever before. At least three contingent factors have combined to create conditions for subversion to become more widely practiced: 1) neoliberal globalization; 2) the rise and spread of businesses that offer private intelligence, surveillance, and “black ops”; and 3) the digital communications environment. Liberal democracies need to bring greater transparency, oversight, and public accountability to their own clandestine, law-enforcement, signals, and other intelligence agencies. If subversion continues to flourish unchecked, then the rule of law, public accountability, and even the scientific research necessary for our very survival in the face of these risks will suffer.

Let me begin with a story—a peek inside the disturbing worlds that are the focus of the Citizen Lab’s research. In August 2020, Citizen Lab senior researcher Bill Marczak was investigating espionage aimed at a dissident from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) then living in Britain. Marczak discovered that IP addresses belonging to a prominent British law firm were also being targeted.¹ Eventually, Marczak determined that phones connected to the firm’s lawyers and others involved with one of its highest-profile clients had all been hacked using Pegasus—a sophisticated spyware sold by an Israel-based surveillance vendor, the NSO Group.

Among the victims was Princess Haya, the ex-wife of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the UAE’s prime minister and the absolute ruler of one of its component parts (Dubai). A phone belonging to Princess Haya’s lawyer, Baroness Fiona Shackleton—a sitting member of the British House of Lords—had also been hacked, along with the devices of several people close to the princess. The sheikh and the princess had been waging a child-custody dispute in U.K. courts. Originally designed for use by governments investigating crime and terrorism, Pegasus had become a billionaire’s tool in a private legal battle.

Full https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/subversion-inc-the-age-of-private-espionage/

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