Corporate Surveillance

Further Due Diligence Needed After Suspension of Some Cloud and AI Services Human Rights Watch — (New York, October 10, 2025) – Microsoft should suspend business activities that are contributing to grave human rights abuses and international crimes by the Israeli military and other Israeli government bodies, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Access Now, and […]

Ghosts of E. Germany’s Stasi: How technology is used to supercharge Monitoring and Control

Global Voices

Written byTactical Tech Written bySafa This article was written by Safa for the series “Digitized Divides” and originally published on tacticaltech.org. An edited version is republished by Global Voices under a partnership agreement. ( Globalvoices.org ) – Surveillance, monitoring, and control have been used historically and continue to be used currently under the guise of […]

Corporate Surveillance

How will Your Data be Used in an Age of Dark Enlightenment?

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Sometime in the late 1980s, I was talking with a friend on my landline (the only kind of telephone we had then). We were discussing logistics for an upcoming demonstration against the Reagan administration’s support for the Contras fighting the elected government of Nicaragua. We agreed that, when our call was […]

Corporate Surveillance

How your Smartphone is Spying on You and giving You Attention Deficit Disorder

Frida Berrigan

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Recently, I’ve been turning off my iPhone — all the way off! — for 10 to 30 minutes at a time. I leave it somewhere in the house, while I try to live IRL (“in real life”), washing dishes, hanging up laundry, or even going for a walk, phoneless. In this hyper-connected […]

Corporate Surveillance

US Court fines Israeli Spyware Firm NSO $167mn for Targeting Whatsapp

Juan Cole

( Middle East Monitor ) – A federal jury in California has ordered Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group to pay Meta $167 million in punitive damages, marking the first time a court has imposed financial liability on a spyware vendor for abuses linked to its software. The ruling sends a strong signal that private firms […]

Corporate Surveillance

Did the Pegasus Spyware Netanyahu used against Palestinians and gave to Saudis bring him Down?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Pegasus spyware made by the Israeli NSO company and backed by the Israeli state has been used extensively against Palestinians to keep them stateless, and former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu used access to the software as an incentive for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to improve relations […]

Corporate Surveillance

Saudi feminist Loujain Alhathloul Sues UAE Hackers DarkMatter, Run by US Expats, For Spying on Her

Electronic Frontier Foundation

( Electronic Frontier Foundation) – Portland, Oregon—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit today on behalf of prominent Saudi human rights activist Loujain AlHathloul against spying software maker DarkMatter Group and three of its former executives for illegally hacking her iPhone to secretly track her communications and whereabouts. AlHathloul is among the victims of […]

China

Rejecting Biden pressure to distance itself from China, Emirates suspends $23 bn F-35 Deal

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The United Arab Emirates, the fabulously wealthy set of oil states at the head of the Gulf, has frozen its $23 billion deal to buy advanced stealth F-35 fighter-jets and unmanned drones from the United States. The Abu Dhabi local press delicately explained that the freeze was for “technical reasons.” […]

Corporate Surveillance

We’re all Palestinians Now: Israel-backed NSO Spyware used against US State Department

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Reuters reports that at least nine US State Department officials had their smartphones hacked by Pegasus spyware, produced by the Israeli-government-backed NSO company. The officials were informed of the hacking of their iPhones by Apple, which is suing NSO, essentially for tortious interference. The State Department personnel were all either […]