Supreme Court Denies ‘Immunity' Claim Made By Israeli Spyware Company At The Center Of WhatsApp Lawsuit

Posted By TheNewsCommenter: From Dailycaller.com: “Supreme Court Denies ‘Immunity’ Claim Made By Israeli Spyware Company At The Center Of WhatsApp Lawsuit”. Below is an excerpt from the article.

The Supreme Court denied a request by an Israeli spyware company claiming immunity from a lawsuit filed by Meta, which owns Facebook and WhatsApp, alleging the hacking company unlawfully installed spyware on WhatsApp in 2019.

NSO Group Technologies requested in April 2022 that the Supreme Court grant the company immunity because it was “acting on the state’s behalf,” according to NSO’s petition for writ of certiorari. The petition was denied by the Supreme Court Monday without explanation, according to the Supreme Court’s order list. (RELATED: US-Designated Senior Terrorist Exploits Twitter Spaces To Promote Violence)

A Meta spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation it was “grateful” the Supreme Court denied “NSO’s baseless petition.”

“NSO’s spyware has enabled cyberattacks targeting human rights activists, journalists, and government officials,” the spokesperson said. “We firmly believe that their operations violate U.S. law and they must be held to account for their unlawful operations.”

Meta filed a lawsuit against NSO in 2019, arguing that the Israeli company violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act after it used the spyware “Pegasus” to access over 1, 400 WhatsApp users’ accounts and conducted surveillance, according to the lawsuit. Some of the account holders included “attorneys, journalists, human rights activists, political dissidents, diplomats, and other senior foreign government officials.”

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