A coalition of human rights groups on Wednesday joined Facebook’s lawsuit against Israeli spyware vendor NSO, alleging that the company “prioritizes profit to the detriment of human rights.
”The organizations - including internet rights group Access Now, London-based Amnesty International, and the Committee to Protect Journalists - filed an amicus or “friend of the court” brief in support of Facebook’s fight against NSO, which the social media giant accuses of having subverted its WhatsApp instant messaging service to hack into the phones of human rights activists and dissidents worldwide.
The brief, filed before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, adds weight to the legal battle between Facebook and NSO, which began in October 2019.
On Monday, a group of tech giants including Microsoft, Google, Dell, and Cisco filed an amicus brief that warned that NSO’s hacking tools posed a danger to the safety of users across the internet.
The four tech giants (exclusive of Facebook), maintained that by allowing NSO to claim immunity from prosecution, it would result in "more foreign governments with powerful and dangerous cyber-surveillance tools."
The brief added that if the tools fell into the wrong hands they could be used nefariously.
The rights coalition filing the brief on Wednesday includes India’s Internet Freedom Foundation, the Africa-focused Paradigm Initiative, London-based Privacy International, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, and Mexican rights group R3D. Earlier this week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed its own amicus brief alleging that NSO had become “notorious for facilitating human rights abuses.”
First published: 07:17, 12.24.20