Ice Reactivates Contract With Spyware Maker Paragon

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) signed a contract past twelvemonth pinch Israeli spyware shaper Paragon worthy $2 million. 

Shortly after, nan Biden management put nan statement nether review, issuing a “stop activity order,” to find whether nan statement complied pinch an executive order connected commercialized spyware, which restricts U.S. authorities agencies from utilizing spyware that could break quality authorities aliases target Americans abroad. 

Almost a twelvemonth later, erstwhile it looked for illustration nan statement would conscionable tally retired and ne'er go active, ICE lifted nan extremity activity order, according to nationalist records.

“This statement is for a afloat configured proprietary solution including license, hardware, warranty, maintenance, and training. This modification is to assistance nan extremity activity order,” read an update dated August 30 connected nan U.S. government’s Federal Procurement Data System, a database of authorities contracts. 

Independent journalist Jack Poulson was nan first to study nan news successful his newsletter.

Paragon has for years cultivated nan image of being an “ethical” and responsible spyware maker, successful opposition pinch arguable spyware purveyors specified arsenic Hacking Team, Intellexa, and NSO Group. On its official website, Paragon claims to supply its customers pinch “ethically based tools, teams, and insights.”

The spyware shaper faces an ethical dilemma. Now that nan statement pinch ICE’s Information Technology Division is active, it’s up to Paragon to determine whether it wants to proceed its narration pinch ICE, an agency that has dramatically ramped up wide deportations and expanded its surveillance powers since Donald Trump took complete nan White House. 

Emily Horne, a spokesperson for Paragon, arsenic good arsenic executive president John Fleming, did not respond to a petition for comment. 

In an effort to show its bully faith, successful February of this year, Fleming told TechCrunch that nan institution only sells to nan U.S. authorities and different unspecified allied countries. 

Paragon has already had to look a thorny ethical dilemma. In January, WhatsApp revealed that astir 90 of its users, including journalists and quality authorities workers, had been targeted pinch Paragon’s spyware, called Graphite. In nan pursuing days and weeks, Italian journalist Francesco Cancellato and several section pro-immigration activists came guardant saying they were among nan victims. 

In consequence to this scandal, Paragon trim ties pinch nan Italian government, which had successful nan meantime launched an enquiry to find what happened. Then, successful June, integer authorities investigation group Citizen Lab confirmed that 2 different journalists, an unnamed European one, and a workfellow of Cancellato, had been hacked pinch Paragon’s spyware. 

An Italian parliament committee concluded that nan spying of nan pro-immigration activists was legal, but it besides claimed that location was nary grounds that Italy’s intelligence agencies, erstwhile Paragon customers, had targeted Cancellato. 

John Scott-Railton, a elder interrogator astatine Citizen Lab, who has investigated cases of spyware maltreatment for much than a decade, told TechCrunch that “these devices were designed for dictatorships, not democracies built connected liberty and protection of individual rights.”

The interrogator said that moreover spyware is “corrupting,” which is why “there’s a increasing heap of spyware scandals successful democracies, including pinch Paragon’s Graphite. Worse, Paragon is still shielding spyware abusers. Just look astatine nan still-unexplained hacks of Italian journalists.”