Spying in Mexico
U.S. should condemn any attempts to violate privacy rights, even south of the border.
Mexican officials, including President Enrique Peña Nieto, may be a little nervous these days following the arrest in Miami last month of former Panama President Ricardo Martinelli.
Martinelli is fighting extradition to his homeland where he faces charges of illegally spying on political rivals with the same Israeli-produced spyware the Mexican government now is accused of using for the same purpose.
According to The New York Times and internet monitoring groups in Mexico and Canada, the government purchased $80 million worth of a software called Pegasus and has used it to hack cellphones of journalists, political opponents and other perceived threats.
The Times said the software has been used “in what many view as an unprecedented effort to thwart the fight against the corruption infecting every limb of Mexican society.” All things considered, we’d say that is pretty likely.
The government has responded that it collects intelligence like other governments to protect against security threats, but, unsurprisingly, denied any wrongdoing. Peña Nieto, also unsurprisingly, has pleaded ignorance and ordered an investigation.
It turns out this spyware and spying problem has popped up in other countries — Colombia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates, to name a few — and is the result of what Foreign Policy magazine calls “the burgeoning business of private companies selling military-grade spyware.”
Pegasus is the creation of Israelbased NSO Group, whose founders came from Israeli military intelligence operations. It taps into cell phones, mines all the information and uses the phone as a microphone and camera into the phone user’s life.
Martinelli’s spying operation captured a political rival engaging in sex. The video was put on YouTube.
How successful has NSO been? It was purchased in 2014 for $120 million by U.S. private equity firm Francisco Partners, which is now reportedly trying to sell it for $1.2 billion.
The problem with all this is obvious; very sophisticated spyware is now broadly available from NSO and other firms and can easily be obtained by those in power for untoward purposes as has been charged in Mexico and Panama.
NSO says it sells only to “authorized” governments and only for use in tracking criminal groups and terrorists, but the customers appear to have broad definitions for both.
We would normally urge the U.S. to take the lead in trying to prevent the spread of spyware and its illicit use by governments, but President Donald Trump has called for loosening restraints on our own intelligence agencies so we doubt that the world would pay much attention.
There is also the problem that his former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, once served as a paid consultant to NSO.
This is one of those issues where our representatives in Congress may play a bigger role. We would encourage them to fight for the right to privacy and to keep the federal government in check, two concepts our mostly Republican delegation usually supports.
This may also be an issue where grassroots pressure will be important, so we would urge concerned Americans to push their elected representatives to take action against spyware.
And we would encourage citizens of Mexico to do the same on their side of the Rio Grande, where their government needs to be told in the bluntest possible terms to stop spying on its own people.
It turns out this spyware and spying problem has popped up in other countries — Colombia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates, to name a few.