February 6, 2024 at 12:45AM
The U.S. State Department has introduced a new policy imposing visa restrictions on those involved in the illegal use of commercial spyware. The move aims to hold individuals and companies accountable for unlawfully surveilling, harassing, or intimidating individuals, with potential repercussions for executives and companies developing and selling spyware. The policy follows recent revelations of spyware targeting activists in Jordan.
Key Takeaways from Meeting Notes:
– The U.S. State Department is implementing a new policy imposing visa restrictions on individuals and companies involved in the illegal use of commercial spyware to surveil civil society members.
– Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized the threat to privacy, freedom of expression, and association posed by the misuse of commercial spyware, linking it to arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings.
– The new policy targets individuals who unlawfully surveil, harass, suppress, or financially benefit from the misuse of spyware, as well as the companies that develop and sell such tools.
– Executives affected by the visa restrictions may no longer be eligible for the visa waiver program and will need to apply for a visa to travel to the U.S.
– Recent events in Jordan involving the targeting of journalists, lawyers, and human-rights activists with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware have drawn attention to the misuse of surveillance tools.
– In recent years, the U.S. government has taken actions such as sanctioning NSO Group and Candiru, barring federal government agencies from using commercial spyware posing national security risks, and placing certain companies on a trade blocklist.
– An intelligence assessment from the U.K.’s GCHQ revealed that at least 80 countries have purchased commercial cyber intrusion software over the past decade.
Please let me know if you need further clarification or additional details.