February 5, 2024 at 06:06PM
The Biden administration has implemented a new policy allowing visa restrictions on individuals involved in misusing commercial spyware to target journalists, activists, and marginalized communities. This action aims to address privacy and human rights concerns. Notably, the policy could affect citizens of any country and reflects growing international concerns about the misuse of spyware.
From the meeting notes, the key takeaways are:
1. The Biden administration announced a new policy to impose visa restrictions on foreign individuals involved in the misuse of commercial spyware to target journalists, activists, dissidents, marginalized communities, or their family members, as well as those who facilitate or financially benefit from the misuse.
2. The policy aims to address concerns with the growing misuse of commercial spyware for repression, information restriction, and human rights abuses and has implications for citizens of any country found to have misused or facilitated the malign use of spyware.
3. The best known example of spyware, the Pegasus software from Israel’s NSO Group, has been used to target individuals across multiple countries, and the U.S. has placed export limits on NSO Group.
4. Specific instances of Pegasus spyware misuse were highlighted, including its use in Jordan to hack cellphones of journalists, lawyers, human rights, and political activists, and its installation on the phone of Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancée after his killing in 2018.
These are the key points outlined in the meeting notes regarding the new policy and specific instances of commercial spyware misuse.