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September 25, 2017

Evidence of Government Surveillance in Mexico Continues to Mount [Is This News?]

Filed under: Cybersecurity,Government,Journalism,News,Privacy,Reporting,Security — Patrick Durusau @ 4:19 pm

Evidence of Government Surveillance in Mexico Continues to Mount by Giovanna Salazar, translated by Omar Ocampo.

From the post:

In early September, further attempts to spy on activists in Mexico were confirmed. The president of Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), an organization dedicated to investigative journalism, received several SMS messages that were intended to infect his mobile device with malicious software.

According to The New York Times, Claudio X. González Guajardo was threatened with Pegasus, a sophisticated espionage tool or “spyware” sold exclusively to governments that was acquired by the Mexican government in 2014 and 2015, with the alleged intention of combating organized crime. Once installed, Pegasus spyware allows the sender or attacker to access files on the targeted device, such as text messages, emails, passwords, contacts list, calendars, videos and photographs. It even allows the microphone and camera to activate at any time, inadvertently, on the infected device.

Salazar’s careful analysis of the evidence leaves little doubt:

these intrusive technologies are being used to intimidate and silence dissent.

But is this news?

I ask because my starting assumption is that governments buy surveillance technologies to invade the privacy of their citizens. The other reason would be?

You may think some targets merit surveillance, such as drug dealers, corrupt officials, but once you put surveillance tools in the hands of government, all citizens are living in the same goldfish bowl. Whether we are guilty of any crime or not.

The use of surveillance “to intimidate and silence dissent” is as natural to government as corruption.

The saddest part of Salazar’s report is that Pegasus is sold exclusively to governments.

Citizens need a free, open source edition of Pegasus Next Generation with which to spy on governments, businesses, banks, etc.

A way to invite them into the goldfish bowl in which ordinary citizens already live.

The ordinary citizen has no privacy left to lose.

The question is when current spy masters will lose theirs as well?

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