Interesting Q from MEP Beata Kampa: Does NSO have information about how many crimes have been prevented or how many lives saved thanks to #Pegasus (aka the purposes NSO claims the software is built for)?

#NSO dude first admits that they do not have any data;

but then claims without any evidence that it must be "thousands of lives saved" and -- hold it -- even brings up paedophiles, because of course he does.

Another great #Pegasus committee moment captured by @jsrailton over at Twitter:

https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1539251613726023682

NSO dude keeps on claiming how they take #HumanRights and international law seriously but refuses to say anything meaningful about the publicly known cases of abuse in #Spain, #Poland, #Hungary, etc.

Hahaha, #NSO: "we are first and foremost a research and development company" LMAO

#NSO says total number of #Pegasus targets is about 13,000 per year, used by 60 customers. That makes ~217 targets per customer.

Independent research said the number of targets was over 50,000.

https://forbiddenstories.org/case/the-pegasus-project/

MEP Körner follows his colleague Heide with good questions on numbers, #NSO refuses to respond to most of them.

Except: More than 5 EU member states are NSO customer.

Excellent question by @HNeumannMEP: What kind of regulation would be needed for companies like #NSO?

NSO answer: "We would need something like weapons controls."

So the company agrees they are selling weapons??

And now Polish MEP Sikorski on fire:

"I am contacting you as a victim, how can I now that I have been targeted by #Pegasus?"

"Are you proud of targeting the Polish opposition?"

Other good Qs from MEP @salima_yenbou: What is #NSOs definition of terrorism?

A: "a clear threat of violence against an institution" -- this sounds veeery broad to me and could easily include protesters in oppressive regimes.

The only positive aspect in #NSO's responses I could find so far: they made explicit reference to @FbdnStories and @AmnestyTech reporting.

To conclude, Rapporteur Sophie In 't Veld asks is #NSO was willing to work with Amnesty Tech and the EP to "go through every single case of abusive use of #Pegasus".

Answer: Kind of yes, but we won't be able to do much probably b/c we'd need customer permission.

So I guess that's a no.

@ilumium Beata Kempa is from PiS, Polish ruling right-wing party. PiS government bought Pegasus and notoriously used it against opposition figures.

Kempa was sending him a soft ball question.

@rysiek Yes, I know (and dislike) Kempa's political affiliation but still thought it was an interesting question. :)

@ilumium ah, sorry for butting-in then.

@rysiek Ah no worries, I find it often difficult myself to decide how to handle contributions from extreme political parties.

@Jan Penfrat Any link to the video, please?

@kwj https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/webstreaming/committee-of-inquiry-to-investigate-use-of-pegasus-and-equivalent-surveillance-spyware_20220621-1500-COMMITTEE-PEGA

@ilumium "we really don't want to be seen saying no, but we can't and won't say yes"

@ilumium And that score... is made by #NSO, I guess?

@aab Of course it is. I guess it's two interns sitting together reading Wikipedia articles. 🤷