ICE gibt zu, dass es leistungsstarke Spyware verwendet

Details below:

>His letter, dated April 1, was a belated response to an October inquiry from three Democratic members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform expressing concern about the agency’s potential use of the spyware Graphite, which was created by an Israeli company, Paragon Solutions.
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>The letter is the first time ICE has indicated it is using Graphite. The agency initially signed a $2 million contract with Paragon Solutions for an unspecified software product at the end of the Biden administration. But the contract was swiftly paused until it was revived by the Trump administration last fall.
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>Graphite uses what is known as „zero click“ technology so that it can gain access to encrypted messages on a targeted device even if the user never clicks on a link.
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>Lyons‘ confirmation that the agency is using spyware comes as ICE has ramped up its use of surveillance technologies to find people in the U.S. without authorization as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. Those tools have also been used extensively on American citizens who have protested ICE’s activities. The revelation also comes shortly before Congress is set to debate whether to reauthorize a surveillance law, and whether to close a legal loophole that allows the federal government to buy data about millions of Americans in bulk from commercial data brokers.
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>Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., one of the authors of the October letter asking for answers about ICE’s use of spyware, told NPR in a statement, „The response I received from ICE makes one thing clear. They are moving forward with invasive spyware technology inside the United States.“
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>Lee expressed disappointment that Lyons did not provide substantive answers to her questions, including who could be targeted with the technology and the legal basis for using it within the United States.
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>Paragon Solutions was purchased by an American private investment firm AE Industrial Partners in late 2024, which merged with the cybersecurity company REDLattice. Neither AE Partners or REDLattice returned NPR’s request for comment.
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>Lyons‘ response alarmed civil liberties advocates who worry about the potential for ICE to abuse the tool and use it against targets beyond drug traffickers and terrorists.
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>“The biggest concern now is that Lyons‘ response doesn’t rule out ICE using an administrative subpoena to deploy this malware against people living in the United States as part of their ideological battle against constitutionally protected protest,“ said Cooper Quintin, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for digital privacy.
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>“An extremely invasive surveillance capability such as this should require the strongest judicial oversight and confirmation that such intrusion is necessary and [a] proportionate response to the crime being investigated,“ Quintin said.
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>Maria Villegas Bravo, a lawyer with the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the U.S. does not have sufficient regulations in place „to stop the U.S. government from abusing Constitutional and human rights in the process of using this technology.“
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>Villegas Bravo said that by paying for Graphite, the U.S. is helping to bolster the market for technologies that are being exploited by foreign governments to undermine the privacy of messaging applications and carry out invasive surveillance of phones.
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>“This is a grave national security risk because it weakens American critical infrastructure, including our telecommunications networks,“ Villegas Bravo said.

Unfortunately history has shown that it’s not a hypothetical that these tools will be used for a whole host of purposes beyond what was originally envisioned. We need methods of maintaining some degree of privacy in our lives, but unfortunately this appears to be increasingly difficult due to pressures from both private and public sector interests.

Get bent ICE!

You cannot justify violating civil rights. We will unmask you. We will hold you accountable. There will be a reckoning