WASHINGTON—In an April 1 letter to Congress, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that it has approved the procurement and use of a powerful spyware tool. Last summer, ICE reportedly re-opened a $2 million contract with the U.S. branch of Paragon Solutions—the Israeli manufacturer of spyware known as Graphite—prompting concerns from members of Congress about the agency’s interest in using spyware and the risks such technologies pose to civil liberties.

The following can be attributed to Nadine Farid Johnson, policy director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University:

“ICE’s use of powerful spyware tools raises serious civil liberties concerns. Spyware enables covert and often unlimited access to smartphone data, posing significant risks to free speech and privacy. Experience shows these tools are highly susceptible to misuse; they’ve already been used to target journalists, human rights advocates, and political dissidents around the world. Democracies should not be in the business of deploying spyware against their populations. We appreciate Representative Lee’s focus on this issue and again urge Congress to step in to limit the circumstances in which spyware technology can be used.”

In 2022, the Knight Institute filed a lawsuit on behalf of journalists and other members of El Faro—one of Central America’s foremost independent news organizations, based in El Salvador—who were targeted with spyware attacks using NSO Group’s Pegasus technology. In July of last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had abused its discretion in dismissing the lawsuit and remanded the case for further consideration. Read more about that case, Dada v. NSO Group, here.  

For more information, contact: Adriana Lamirande, [email protected]