(Washington Post) Elizabeth Dwoskin - Israelis Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie, who helped found the NSO Group, told the Washington Post this week they were asked by law enforcement officials in 2009 to help them read and listen to the conversations of terrorists, pedophiles and other criminals in the age of the smartphone. Hulio has acknowledged that some of NSO's government customers had misused its software in the past - describing it as a "violation of trust" - and said NSO shut off five clients' access in the past several years after conducting a human rights audit, and had ended ties with two in the last year alone. "We built this company to save life. Period," Hulio said Monday. "There is not enough education about what a national security or intelligence organization needs to do every day in order to give basic security to their citizens. And all we hear is this campaign that we are violating human rights, and it's very upsetting. Because I know how much life has been saved globally because of our technology." "This technology was used to handle literally the worst this planet has to offer. Somebody has to do the dirty work....If somebody says, I found a better way to get criminals, get terrorists, get information from a pedophile, I will shut down this company." Hulio says he believes that interests hostile to Israel are behind some of the attacks on his company. At the same time, Hulio said the company will continue to immediately shut down any clients that have "violated trust" and has refused to sell to 90 countries, including Russia and China.
2021-07-22 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive