Thread by @InesAbdelrazek

The @Europarl_EN Committee that investigated the use of #Pegasus & equivalent surveillance #spyware released its report.
Extracting key paragraphs [relevant to Palestine] in this 🧵
👉Bottomline: Absence of regulations&secrecy fuel repression in the name of "national security"

"The findings of the PEGA inquiry are shocking and they should alarm every European citizen. It is evident that the trade in, and use of spyware should be strictly regulated. The PEGA committee will make a series of recommendations to that effect." europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document…

"PEGA has received minimal or no answers from national authorities about the acquisition and use of spyware in their Member States... Vendors and countries issuing export licenses (mostly Israel) share no information about their customers."

"Many Member State authorities have not provided PEGA with meaningful information about the legal frameworks governing the use of spyware or about the use of spyware in their Member States...Some MS have deployed spyware and refused to comment on it by invoking national security"

"This visit [to Israel] underlined the ineffectiveness of existing safeguards against the abuse of spyware and the need for much tighter European Union regulation of the sale, purchase and use of spyware. (§425.)"

"Isr. has ...promoted itself as an innovative start-up nation...w/ the most sophisticated technology in the field, such as #NSO, Cellebrite, Candiru, QuaDream & Intellexa. The industry’s collective sales are est. to be at least USD 1 billion annually" haaretz.com/israel-news/20…

"....cybersecurity division Unit 8200, have played an essential role in Israel’s successful spyware industry ...80 % of the 2 300 people who founded Israel’s 700 cybersecurity companies were former employees of the Israeli Defence Forces’ intelligence units."

"According to experts, Israel’s readiness to test new surveillance systems on Palestinians in the occupied territories creates incentives for a business model in the surveillance industry, which NSO, too, has benefited from "

"countries acquiring ‘fieldtrained’ spyware from Israel are contributing to human rights violations in the aforementioned regions. EU M States...are therefore in direct contradiction of the EU’s foreign and security policy agenda regarding the support of human rights& democracy"

"NSO’s Pegasus spyware has been used to target Palestinian civil society, including six Palestinian human rights defenders. In the cases of @UbaiAboudi, ...and Salah Hammouri... the use of surveillance spyware appears to have resulted in their administrative detention."

"Spyware ... is used as integral part of a system. The rule of law turns into the law of the ruler. The legal basis for surveillance can be drafted in in vague and imprecise terms, so as to legalise broad and unfettered use of spyware."

See press release also by @ECCPBrussels eccpalestine.org/eccp-press-rel…