FBI confirms it bought spyware from Israel's NSO Group

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI has confirmed purchasing NSO Group's powerful spyware tool Pegasus, whose chronic abuse to surveil journalists, dissidents and human rights activists has long been established. It suggested its motivation was to “stay abreast of emerging technologies and tradecraft.”

The agency added in a statement Wednesday that it obtained a limited license from the Israeli firm “for product testing and evaluation only,” never using it operationally or to support any investigation.

But critics wondered why the premier U.S. law enforcement agency would need to pay for access to a notorious surveillance tool that has been extensively researched by public interest cyber sleuths if its interest was so limited.

“Spending millions of dollars to line the pockets of a company that is widely known to serially facilitate widespread human rights abuses, possible criminal acts, and operations that threaten the U.S.’s own national security is definitely troubling,” said Ron Deibert, director of Citizen Lab, the University of Toronto internet watchdog that has exposed dozens of Pegasus hacks since 2016.

“At the very least, this seems like a terribly counterproductive, irresponsible, and ill-conceived way” to keep abreast of surveillance tech, he added.

An FBI spokesperson did not say what the agency paid NSO Group or when, but The New York Times reported last week that it obtained a one-year license for $5 million, testing it in 2019. On Wednesday, The Guardian quoted a source familiar with the deal as saying the FBI paid $4 million to renew the license but never used the spyware, which infiltrates a target's smart phone, granting access to all its communications and location data and converting it into a remote eavesdropping device.

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