US Puts Israeli Spyware Firm NSO Group on Trade Blacklist

Aime Williams and Mehul Srivastava, reporting for The Financial Times:

The US has added NSO Group, the Israeli military spyware company that created software that has been traced to the phones of journalists and human rights activists, to a trade blacklist in a bid to tackle the growing surveillance threat posed by technology companies.

NSO and a smaller Tel Aviv-based company, Candiru, were among four companies added by the US commerce department on Wednesday to its so-called entity list, which would restrict exports of US technology to the companies.

I don’t know what the practical effect of this will be, but it feels justified.

★ Wednesday, 3 November 2021