Israeli company NSO Group’s spyware has been linked to state surveillance of human rights activists and dissidents.
The US Supreme Court has allowed messaging platform WhatsApp to file a lawsuit against Israel’s NSO Group, which has linked the Pegasus spyware to government surveillance of journalists, human rights activists and dissidents around the world.
Supreme Court judges on Monday validated lower court rulings against the Israeli company, which had argued it should be recognized as a foreign government agent and therefore entitled to immunity under US law, which limits lawsuits against foreign countries.
WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta and is among a number of tech companies and individuals taking legal action against the Israeli firm, has claimed NSO Group monitored about 1,400 people through the messaging platform.
The company’s 2019 lawsuit seeks to ban NSO Group from meta platforms and servers and seek unspecified damages.
Meta, which owns both WhatsApp and Facebook, welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision Monday to dismiss what it called a “baseless” appeal.
“NSO’s spyware has enabled cyberattacks on human rights defenders, journalists and government officials,” Meta said in a statement. “We firmly believe their operations violate US law and they must be held accountable for their unlawful operations.”
President Joe Biden’s administration had previously recommended the court dismiss the appeal, with the Justice Department arguing that “NSO clearly has no claim to immunity here.”
The US Department of Commerce blacklisted the Israeli firm in 2021 for complicity in “transnational repression,” a move that limited NSO Group’s access to US technology.
WhatsApp has claimed that at least 100 of the targeted users connected to its lawsuit were journalists, rights activists and members of civil society.
An investigation released in 2021 by 17 media organizations led by the Paris-based non-profit journalist group Forbidden Stories found that the spyware was involved in attempted and successful hacks of smartphones by journalists, government officials and human rights activists on a global scale.
Palestinian rights activists, Thai democracy activists, El Salvadoran media workers and the inner circle of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi were allegedly among the targets of state actors using Pegasus spyware.
“Today’s decision paves the way for lawsuits from technology companies as well as lawsuits from journalists and human rights activists who have been victims of spyware attacks,” Carrie DeCell, senior attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, is representing journalists in a separate lawsuit against the NSO Group, said on Monday.
For its part, the NSO Group has argued that Pegasus helps law enforcement and intelligence agencies fight crime and protect national security. The technology is said to help catch “terrorists”, pedophiles and criminals.
The company, which does not disclose its customers, has claimed only law enforcement agencies can purchase the product and all sales are authorized by Israel’s Defense Ministry. It has said it has no control over how the technology is used after the sale.
Following Monday’s verdict, the Israeli company said in a statement: “We are confident that the court will find that its customers’ use of Pegasus was legal.”
NSO Group is also being sued by iPhone maker Apple, which has accused the company of violating its terms of service and service agreement by breaking into its products.
Apple has previously described NSO’s employees as “amoral 21st-century mercenaries.”