Thread by @wcathcart

This groundbreaking reporting from @Guardian, @WashingtonPost, and many others demonstrates what we and others have been saying for years: NSO’s dangerous spyware is used to commit horrible human rights abuses all around the world and it must be stopped.
theguardian.com/world/2021/jul…

Human rights defenders, tech companies and governments must work together to increase security and hold the abusers of spyware accountable. Microsoft was bold in their actions last week blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/…

In 2019, @WhatsApp discovered and defeated an attack from NSO.  They rely on unknown vulnerabilities in mobile OSes, which is one of the reasons why we felt it was so important to raise awareness of what we'd found. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…

At the time, we worked with @CitizenLab, who identified 100+ cases of abusive targeting of human rights defenders and journalists in 20+ countries.  But today's reporting shows that the true scale of abuse is even larger, and with terrifying national security implications.

We need more companies, and, critically, governments, to take steps to hold NSO Group accountable. Once again, we urge a global moratorium on the use of unaccountable surveillance technology now. It’s past time.

Thank you to @Microsoft, @Google, @Cisco, @VMWare, the @InternetAssn and others who have spoken up against the perils of giving spyware firms like NSO immunity.

This is a wake up call for security on the internet.  The mobile phone is the primary computer for billions of people.  Governments and companies must do everything they can to make it as secure as possible.  Our security and freedom depend on it.

That's why we continue to defend end-to-end encryption so tirelessly.  To those who have proposed weakening end-to-end encryption: deliberately weakening security will have terrifying consequences for us all.