Spain cancels Pegasus spyware investigation because Israel is not co-operating

[narag]

Context: prime minister revealed that he had been spied upon, also defense minister and others. A few days later he published a letter to the king of Morocco reversing decades of Spain's position on Western Sahara. That's a competence of the parliament, not his, but that doesn's seem to matter.

A common belief is that he's being blackmailed.

Oh and Morocco is now in very good relations with Israel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Morocco_relatio...

[the_gipsy]

The simple explanation is that it improves the relation with USA, Israel, and Morocco. Killing 3 birds with one stone, especially since Morocco has been pressuring by facilitating irregular immigration waves just prior.

The move would have been hailed as Expert Global Politics if done by the opposition itself. Instead we got a shallow conspiracy theory of "blackmail" that's not even entertaining because nobody can provide any substance whatsoever.

[ihaveajob]

Precisely this. Other commenters are pointing out that the Spanish government doesn't want to lose the option to investigate secessionist leaders, but given the current good relationships between the socialist party and Puigdemont's, that makes no sense. More likely they're trying to gloss over the obvious blackmailing incident at the first opportunity to blame someone else for the lack of success of any investigation.

[tgv]

Is there any kind of evidence? Or is it a "popular" idea?

[ghostDancer]

The other option that was rapidly silenced was that the blackmail was to the Spanish royal Family.

[bjourne]

Israel has a very long history of refusing to cooperate with international law enforcement agencies: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-jewish-american-pedophiles-...

[Zuiii]

It's not surprising when you consider that significant portions of the lands they claim are theirs are occupied in violation of UN treaties. This also doesn't factor in the long list of war crimes they committed. To me, harboring pedophiles doesn't seem too out of character for them.

It's hard to cooperate when your existence is founded on this kind of baggage.

[54r4rf]

Why do they need to ask Israel? The problem is inside the Police and Ministerio de Interior. They can walk to the building and ask and they should get all the answers.

[nonrandomstring]

Fishing for a client list. To be fair, asking the store owner "Did you sell a knife to this murderer?" might yield a saner response than asking the killer. Unfortunately NSO are not that helpful shopkeeper.

[shrubble]

If the Israeli government refuses to cooperate, doesn't that reinforce the perspective that the company is separate from Israeli intelligence agencies, only because of the desire for plausible deniability?

[miohtama]

There are international treaties for international police investigations or "request for mutual assistance."

Here is the actual agreement text between the European Union and Israel you can read yourself:

"Working Arrangement establishing cooperative relations between the law enforcement authorities of Israel and the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation"

https://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/...

Computer crime is listed as one are of co-operation. Israel is not honouring these agreements.

[javimoran]

I don't think so. What the article said is that the government has simply not replied to the 4 requests that have been sent over the last year and a half. To me sticking your head under the sand doesn't imply anything good.

[vuln]

The _export_ is controlled by the Israeli government.

From wiki

“Pegasus spyware is classified as a weapon by Israel and any export of the technology must be approved by the government.[9]”

[9] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/spyware-techno...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSO_Group

[vkou]

I think it reinforces the perspective that Israel is a rogue state.

[kimsant]

Spain is asking the receipt?

Jokes aside, Canadian group points half your country is being spied, specially dissidents. You say nothing is todo with Spain, like a Saudi regime.

Then funds are traced from reserved funds of Spanish government to Pegasus's, you agree, say will investigate, ask the receipt to Israel? Just find who/why decided this, put the head down and try to apologize/add measures to avoid spying dissidents

[elicox]

Dissident? What are you talking about! Do you mean the people that broke the law?

The Canadian group you mention was receiving funds from one the regional government of Spain that was interested on this.

[denton-scratch]

Pegasus was used aginst Catalan independence leaders by the Spanish government. That was certainly the Madrid government, acting with the compliance of the Spanish judiciary.

This story is about the use of Pegasus by someone against the Spanish premier Pedro Sanchez. It's at least plausible that it was done by a Spanish government agency; after all, Spanish security agencies already have a licence from NSO to use Pegasus against Spanish politicians. And the Madrid establishment is not well-disposed to socialists (such as Sanchez).

It strikes me that this judge simply isn't willing to investigate the Spanish security services for bugging their own Prime Minister.

[petre]

They could freeze all NSO assets in Spain, prohibit payments to the NSO group, designate them as a terrorist organization. But the Spanish government also needs their services to spy on jorunalists and Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont, so I guess they'll let it pass.

[WalterBright]

The thing to do is:

1. assume your phone is compromised and act accordingly

2. regularly replace your phone

[dist-epoch]

"Police suspends murder investigation because suspect is not cooperating".

[54r4rf]

It's not even the suspect. At best, it's the seller of the weapon.

[bakugo]

Israel cancels investigation into Israel because Israel is not co-operating.

[FpUser]

Non cooperation did not preclude Iran from being sued for example.

[pestatije]

any excuse is good to avoid pointing the finger to oneself...i mean you just have to see who was spied on to know who spied them

[brap]

I want to point out how odd it is that no one cares about international weapons exports, except when talking about cyber weapons.

USA is the #1 arms exporter in the world, and its top 3 clients are dictators[0] (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait). In fact nearly half of US weapons go to tyrants.

This is not a "usa bad" kind of take, it's just how business is done and it's not just the USA. Fighter jets, missiles, even nukes are being sold all over the world, but god forbids someone sells an 0day.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/248552/us-arms-exports-b...

[Adverblessly]

USA sells weapons to Saudi Arabia. As a result, Saudi Arabia doesn't get its weapons from Russia or Iran and normalizes its relationship with Israel (which is where I live, full disclosure :P).

To me this looks like the best way to bring other countries "into the fold" as well as bring peace to the middle east, until eventually the US selling weapons to Saudi Arabia will be viewed similarly to the US selling weapons to Germany.

Maybe I'm just naive, but I think in most cases applying "friendly pressure" is more useful than force, and I mostly agree with your take that selling cyberweapons should be treated similarly to selling conventional weapons.

[dopamean]

I think the reason for this is who the cyber weapons are pointed at. It's not common soldiers or random citizens in a war zone. It's aimed at politicians and media. I don't how much everyone else cares about this (not that they shouldn't) but if politicians and the media are worried about it then we're going to hear about it a lot and in rather breathless terms.

[stefan_]

Did the Polish PiS shoot and blow up the opposition? No, they used Pegasus. I'm sure you can figure out the reason why.

[jauntywundrkind]

There's an internationally respected right to defend your nation

But it's just so hard to see cyberweapons as a legitimate weapon for border defense & maintaining social order. Cyberweapons are a scary way to break security, to circumvent protections designed for businesses and individuals.

[vict0ni]

I do NOT agree with the next paragraph, I just want to write what people probably are probably thinking about this (and maybe someone can correct me maybe?):

I think people who justify weapons trade they do it because it's "for protection" and in case of selling weapons to countries it's for "defense" and/or "in case of war", whereas with 0days and spyware their use takes place outside of the limits. i.e. when in peace (see Greece Predator story).

With that being said, I think that's idiotic as it almost justifies wars. Plus the sellers just get to pick who is the "good guy" (I mean, they don't want to look bad, right?)

[thriftwy]

The difference is that there is serious deterrence against the use of conventional weapons (you can't just do a quick over the border raid), but for 0days it's all you can exploit buffet.

[TrueDuality]

Pointing any weapons at civilians is always big news. It just doesn't happen as often with conventional weapons. Based on my own experience in the information security space, targeting civilians is both encouraged and intentional by actors including the US.

[justin66]

> I want to point out how odd it is that no one cares about international weapons exports

Why start your comment with an obvious falsehood?

[EustassKid]

Genuine question, why are those countries dictators?

[faraaz98]

Those countries are monarchies, yes. I wouldn't call them dictatorships. Based on external optics, I'd say there's a few countries that are technically democracies but give off more dictatorship vibes than the 3 you mentioned

[tamimio]

And how’s this a surprise? If they can get away with much worse crimes against children, basic human rights, or even bombing a US ship(1), these are like a marginal stuff dealt with by a low rank department.

(1) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident

[wslh]

The world seems more gamified that ever? One person or a team of people in their basement could find a security exploit that impacts the world and at the end these exploits are found in the wild and left a trace.

Not all operations leave a trace but it seems we live in a world where we have more information about intelligence operations than ever.

[yosito]

I think the title some words.

[pvaldes]

very unlikely reason (if the history is true)

[DSingularity]

I wonder if cynicism has won. It seems to me that those that rule this world are unjust tyrants. And most of simply don’t give a shit. I would bet well over half of the info-sec should happily work for NSO. I would bet they wouldn’t care one bit even if they knew the exact names of the dead Palestinians/dissidents left in the wake of their work.

[FpUser]

>"I wonder if cynicism has won"

Did not have to win. It was always in a driver's seat.

[hnthrowaway0315]

Those who rule walk in a different region that we sheep do not have knowledge of.

[rewmie]

> I wonder if cynicism has won. It seems to me that those that rule this world are unjust tyrants. And most of simply don’t give a shit.

I think your take is not well thought through. Spain is an independent nation, just like Israel. Spain has absolutely no jurisdiction over Israeli citizens or companies, and vice versa. If Spain and Israel haven't signed any agreement to cooperate in this subject, all Spain can do is ask nicely without expecting any response.

Being independent or legally bound to reply to a foreign government's requests is not tyranny.

[idbehold]

s/Spanish/Spain