‘Israel’ Pushing Biden to Remove Pegasus Spyware from US Blacklist

By Staff, Agencies

The Zionist occupation regime officials are pushing the US government to remove the spyware company NSO Group from the Department of Commerce blacklist, according to reports.

It comes months after the US Department of Commerce said the ‘Israeli’ spyware company’s activities clashed with the US foreign policy and national security interests.

Biden administration is likely to face harsh criticism from within the Democratic Party, Congress, and the American cyber-defense community if it moves ahead to remove the NSO from the blacklist.

On Wednesday, a report in Axios news agency quoted one US and two ‘Israeli’ officials as saying that Washington was mulling over the ‘Israeli’ demand.

Another report in Walla said the Tel Aviv regime has asked the Biden administration several times in recent months to de-list the NSO.

“We told the Americans that they should not tear down NSO,” a senior Zionist official is quoted as saying by Walla. “Even if the company had some problematic customers, it does not mean that the company’s products and capabilities are no longer needed.”

The Zionist regime has been under tremendous pressure to halt the export of spyware since last July after a group of international rights and media organizations revealed that the Pegasus program produced by NSO was used to hack the phones of journalists, politicians, and human rights activists in several countries.

NSO has since faced lawsuits and criticism from major technology companies across the world, accusing it of putting their customers at risk of hacking.

The group has also been accused of spying and hacking strategic software in countries where the Zionist regime feels threatened.

Last year, NSO was put on a blacklist by the US Commerce Department, a decision which it said was based on evidence that the NSO group developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments who in turn used it "to maliciously target government officials, journalists, business people, activists, academics, and embassy workers."

After the NSO was blacklisted, the report in Axios stated a debate sprung up inside Tel Aviv on whether it should lobby the Biden administration on behalf of the company to remove it from the blacklist.