colleges, me the holding the powerful to account as we examine the us his role in the world on al jazeera. ah, ah. oh, i'm sorry, i'm was in london, our main story this. our taliban has captured the afghans as he of the ranch, and it is the 1st provincial capital to fall to the group since they started there offensive, focusing on major urban areas now is around your board is iran, it's a significant trade route for the government video released by the taliban earlier shows them on the streets around the city as it was captured. report suggests about 20000 people have fled across the border from numerous province to iran, to other cities,

laska gar unshared. back on are also seeing fierce fighting at the moment. i'll get dramatic editor james bays is in couple this is significance around the 1st provincial capital enough can start to fall into taliban control. these pictures released by the taliban ship fighters driving humvees and other vehicles paid for by the u. s. and nato, and taken from africa and forces the airport, the only one in the desert province, as well as key government offices were captured, were told by eye witnesses with barely a short being fired. earlier the taliban fighters had broken into the prison breaking out detainees which included some of their own fighters. they urged the governor abdul karim brown, who, to surrender. he released this video saying he would not. but just hours later, taliban fighters were filming themselves in his office. one of them is shouting, you are a law. you said on facebook. the taliban would be unable to fight you. where are

you? we've entered your office. the whereabouts now of the governor and other key provincial officials is not known. there been other important developments to cobble the deputy press secretary to president gaudy, and the head of the government media office doward. com monopoly was shot dead. the taliban say they carried out that attack and in the north of the country and jose june province their and the provincial capital, the taliban say they've taken control of the palace of the veteran commander of the rescue. dost him? in the provincial capital of helmand, laska, ga battles continue. so the taliban now have taken one provincial capital to a teetering on the edge. the un special envoy for galveston meanwhile, is saying the conflict is entered a dangerous new phase with at least a 1000 civilians killed in the past. month alone, we can get a security council meeting. deborah lyons, with the country will defendant,

a catastrophe of security. council members don't take action that ghana stan is now at a dangerous turning point. ahead lies either a genuine peace negotiations or a tragically intertwined set of crises and increasingly brutal conflict combined with an acute humanitarian situation and multiplying human rights abuses. i do believe that the security council and the broader international community can help prevent the most dire scenarios. but it will require acting in unity and acting quickly, will enter all the headlines. thousands of people continue to flee, the fire their incinerating great swathes of greece and turkey temperatures and greece have dropped below 40 degrees for the 1st time in nearly 10 days in many

parts of the country. but high winds forecast. 5 fighters near athens have gone door to door, urging people to leave the area. the fire emergency in turkey is now into it's tense day, with 36000 people taken to safety across the province of molar. 5 brakes all had been created an effort to prevent the flames from reaching the piano. coin. power plant is the 2nd facility to be threatened this week and fire fighters in the western united states. they are a long way from defeating a huge place that has devastated large areas of california over the past 3 weeks. the dixie fire now covers more than 1700 square kilometers, making it a 3rd largest in the state history, mainly by remote areas so far, but it has destroyed more than $100.00 homes and many more around the threat. the bottom line is the program, but coming up next, but i'll have more news for you a bit later on. i'll see you in about half an hour time. ah,

i own steve clements and i have questions. just how dangerous his spyware, like pegasus, and how much danger our ordinary citizens, like you and me, and because of our phones. let's get to the bottom line. ah, today no one lives without a phone, basically stuck to them all day. of course, smart devices make our lives more efficient, but they also generate records of almost everything we do. becoming little spies in our pocket. for the most part, we don't care when businesses track us, but things get more dangerous when intelligence agencies want to know where you're going and what you're doing and what you're thinking, what you're saying, and private, and whose company you keep. one of the most powerful spyware is out there is made by his really company called n s o group. and the software that governments can buy is called pegasus. it is the power to extract your contacts, your messages, photos, movements,

and more without you ever knowing. recently, a group of newspapers in human rights groups got together to expose just how insidious the spying has become. the investigation found that it's being used against human rights activists against business leaders, heads of state and other government officials, politicians, and journalists all over the world. so how pervasive is this digital surveillance, and what do we do to turn the tables on those watching us jamal cas shoji was monitored by this very software. so to his fiance, or the lives of social activists in journalist today and danger, as they agitate to change the world or try to reveal the truth. today we're talking with 3 experts you've been focusing on this threat posed by pegasus data priest is a reporter for the washington post, and she's the co author of a series of investigative pieces known as the pegasus project, which found that the spyware is being used in at least 50 countries. the pegasus project was done in partnership with amnesty international. and we'll be talking with the secretary general of that global human rights group at the great agnes galard. and john scott rawlton from citizen lab at the university of toronto,

which has been analyzing pegasus on infected phones and exposing how it works for years. now. thank you all for joining us today on this important conversation. john, let me start with you because you and citizen lab were among the 1st i began reading years ago that were essentially warning that the fear that we all have that governments were potentially tracking us. what's happening? can you sketch what has been unfolding and what your principal concerns are? well, 1st of all, thanks for having me and for this great panel. one of the things that i think it's important for people to know is that the industry is not new. we're just learning about it because it's growing and the scale of harms that it's causing are growing as well. this is an industry that basically says to governments around the world, look, you want to hack. maybe you don't have that technology within your country. but you can do it if you have a big enough checkbook and companies like and so, but also companies with

a like hacking team from italy before them. fin fisher from germany in the u. k. before that, have gone to governments and said, look, we will sell you an untraceable technology for pervasive surveillance for us to people's laptops and computers. more recently their phones and you do with it, what you will. the industry says this is about stopping terror. this is about preventing crime, but for the last decade, myself, my colleagues and some of the researchers, adamus international, have documented how extensively this software is misused. if there's a bottom line here, it's that if a government gets it and they don't have good oversight, they will abuse, misuse it. thank you, agnes, call him ard when i saw the reporting by dana priest and others on this and saw that there were more than 50000 numbers and began looking at some of those who were on there, including emanuel microns phone, the president of france, where, where you are now and you began looking at countries all around the world. and that

it wasn't, was, as john said, necessarily those that were engaged in mob like, transnational criminal activity or trans national terrorism. but these were journalists, human rights advocates in others. you know, tell us what the tell us what our fear is, auto look like given what you help discover and help disclose. i think 2 of the dimensions to the right recent tradition. the 1st one is there overreach the fact that so many countries, so many people are concerned. and in the past we are received and they don't talk of individual things targeted right now we've the latest discovery. what we are finding out is that the scale of the phenomenon, the global reach of the pickets, spyware, and of the government using it,

it, he's a systematic problem. it's tammy, formal violation. so that's the 1st point. the 2nd ease, the wrench, of violations that come from the use of because of course, we are aware that by using spyware people are undermining and violated feel right to privacy. what we are also finding out is that governments are violating the right to freedom of expression. they are violating a freedom of the media. they are bio politi core, right? because a number of political parties, members of the, your position from different countries being targeted. they are also important in potentially violating knife because of that nature. so step 2 of fall, great job ration such as duction these appearances and killings as the german cash

should be shown. and finally, you pointed to the example of the french president even was targeted by a foreign country all these all territory, and that he's not the only example trauma east in france, west target to morrow. cool. so those governments are using the find where extract territory. therefore we can, you know, we can conclude that this is a weapon, which i spend potentially very much computation for war and peace. so that i think he's the latest relation. and the fact that we are sold by the equipped to respond to it as a global society. well, thank you. dana priest, you won a pulitzer prize as i recall for a series that you did in the washington post on america's intelligence industrial

complex. and looking at the enormous sprawl of that intelligence complex and the fact that there was very little accountability baked in, or cornering or channeling, you know, that capacity is the work that you're doing on the pegasus project. essentially, the globalization of the same phenomena that you wrote about about the u. s. case. well, i do think it is, but in a particular way, electronic surveillance. it is, as no says, this is a weapon, is real, requires that the ministry of defense approve each failed each country because of its occasion and some military great software. and that tells you something important. it's very powerful. it's hard to detect. and pegasus, the group that owns it, is filling it, not just to anybody. they're selling it to countries in the gulf who are already

very repressed against their own citizens and their citizens who have fled and have are now living in exile. they are also selling it, we learn to faltering democracy's mexico, india hungry places where we'd like to see democratic would like to see democracy strength not weekend. and yet the spyware we learned, and others who reported on this earlier is being used against independent journalists. not just journalists, but independent ones that are really trying to bring information to the citizenry. and finally, i'd like to, i'd like to know, you mentioned the industrial complex of intelligence, which really grew up after $911.00. this is a great example of how this industry in particular is unregulated in most of these countries. there is no regulation that says how you should use

this type of equipment. in the western democracies, there are laws limited and still those laws are often abused. as we saw when edward snowden, the documents were weak, but in the breast of these countries there, there is no regulation. and the international community i think is more or less united in the call for some type of regulation, which would need also some type of transparency right now. this company very secretive denies everything that we've ever said about it and others. and so there's no way to even even vet what they're doing right now. and that would be part of any kind of international regime that looked at this industry and tried to regulate it to some degree. dana just is one of the other elements that come up recently is the potential complicity of a number of americans in this story. even former obama administration officials

that had been advisors or had been consultants to the holding company of n s o group. this had been reported in the guardy and also the american prospect. so is there a complicity, a culpability of certain americans in this, in this story of the, of the, of the actual software company itself. this is not unusual. you know, look at every general just about the leaves military, where do they go to work? they go to work for defense contract. so yes, you have liberals and conservative activist politicians. and, you know, in this case, political officials who became consultants to enter. so really that shouldn't surprise us because the industry and these types of industries offer such lucrative deals to people who can smooth their way for them into, into government. and that is another point. and also is really spending

a lot of money in the united states on increase lobbying because it wants now to, to, to capture the market to get in here with law enforcement and with others. i'm sure the cia would like to show us where to those agencies as well, so far. we can't find a trace of them here. they used to be here, but we can't. we have not found them to be here so far, but they're definitely making efforts. john, is there any chance, as you look at this struggle with how wired and interconnected we are and how i don't even know if i can even mentioned whether whether privacy exists in any real way anymore. but what are your thoughts about this? because i have to tell you, i'm so kind of feel desperate in this moment. we know that most governments, it was countries don't have serious oversight frameworks for this technology. and even governments that do have some oversight, their wind up being abuses, the real fear that i see here though. if we pivot this from the technology to the

feeling, is that for many authoritarians, fear is the tool self. censorship is the point. and if people feel that they can be monitored, if their most intimate personal lives can be monitored to the cell phone, would you best be attached to them? they may center themselves. they may think, you know, i'm not sure i should criticize x or y powerful person. they may think that about somebody in their country, but as we're seeing with pegasus, they may start having to make that calculation about people a 1000 miles or an ocean away. that is absolutely fuel for growing authoritarianism and it's something that has to be break. well, let me ask agnes column art, a big, kind of geopolitical question with this and, and, you know, i don't know where it's going to come out actually in this because, you know, agnes, you've been so involved with united nation. so involved with major, you know, trans yet national human rights in v o, z. like in this, the international. but i guess my question is, you know, i'm wondering like, who is going to blow the whistle?

if you have your opinion, nations inside the you, with the key human a tar committed to certain values and rule of law who are buying the software and using it against their people. you know, where, where do you go with that? if you have the united states that may not about the software, i don't know, i haven't seen reporting on that. but nonetheless, you have january 6 protests and you have a kind of complicated question around democracy going on in this country. where's the beacon on the hill, or where's the leadership that you see to try to reverse these trends and either shame these nations or develop protocols against them? is there a playbook that you see that can help turn this tied your hand in my hands. i think what we are we're missing right now is the can wendy's and the lack of commitment on the part of government to take action. so i think most government really hoping that we've attention,

we have to wait and that's where we continue be because usually ease in it is up to you to to try to and to me mind why don't we must bring a case to court and then the toner activities are going to court on the business of the regulations. most do that. they need, we need to involve judges. we need tween court. there have been a couple of good cases related to somebody else, including congress. it's jovial damage to be more if we cannot be protected by our government. let's try to be protected by o. l judges and by our court, civil society must get organized. we know you did say very when, but few government stuff an intentional interest in doing it. i think

the week before this was revealed in france and you know, was adopted on top of some other things that made it even easier for police and all those to, to get involved in still else without the level of protection that we don't require at the moment he's a big problem globally either he's no control over that kinda stretching tom ashan or level book is feeding on the facts that domesticated nationally. they more crises, us, although sticks a very poor protection against target to so i've asked those people who hold as the journalist we must really act so that they all know is being adopted at the national level that protect us against. don't get to somebody else by don't own government. how do you arm yourself? how do you teach your students to be prepared for this kind of harassment

and surveillance from those they're trying to report on well, i teach journalism students and, and security is one of the basic things we teach now. it's not the case in my day, and i'm still surprised at how young students are surprised at how big their digital exhaust is. this definitely adds a huge leap to that because most people, i think, believe that a smart phone, especially apple, they've done a good job of marketing themselves and having a secure device in fact, secure. and on top of that, there's nothing you can do really to make it secure. so this is good for me because i think journalists need to talk to people face to face more. so that is one of the,

one of the solutions is to stop using your devices for everything and to go back and talk to people face to face. but of course, you know, that is not an ultimate solution. i teach about and surveillance industry now as part of the global campaign of censorship in so many countries just like john was saying it's a fear fear equal censorship. censorship, but also says here in newspapers that depend on tax revenue for advertising, that sort of thing. so it has, it has a vast reach, just this one industry that inter gianna would love to get your thoughts on that as well. but in doing so, i should say that the n s o group has denied that this list is, is accurate. they have denied that pegasus was used to fracture mol, shoji and his fiance. they've denied culpability. and said that if they saw these practices, they would shut down those clients. so i guess i'd ask you the extra,

you know, be question which is when you discovered what you have, but you have a firm that has officially denied any culpability with, with regards to this. what's the pathway forward, the responsible pathway forward? well, this is a great question. let's, let's address it head on. because i think denise, that a good, a good number of things about journalism, i would just observe. every time we as citizen lab investigate a case of a nation state operations and governments hacking gone, wild journalists are among the target. they among the targets they are the through line in so many cases of hacking we observed and it's no accident. first, they do the work, they go out and they find sources, they get people to talk to them who governments want to monitor. but secondarily, especially for authoritarian regimes, journalists are among the truth tellers that those regimes would like to stifle and stop and monitor. with respect to and it shows denials, this is a company that has denied everything it can for as long as it can and it only be

grudgingly admits certain facts. when the evidence is public and incontrovertible. i think you're looking at an industry that is trying to borrow from the big tobacco playbook, seed uncertainty question the science don't necessarily provide much of an alternate experiment, an alternate explanation. just go for the researchers. and this to me highlights why this industry isn't capable right now of self regulation, which is the industry we'll say, look, we understand how we work. we have to operate in secrecy. let us take care of the human rights issues. what we find though, again, and again, is that when the industry is shown to be doing bad things instead of investigating instead of taking action and instead of reforming their practices, they may send private spies against those who find things out. or they may simply embark on a well funded p r. campaign of denial. that is not the mark of a responsible industry. and it's not away forward for living. the heart of the industry is doing agnes as the revelations have come out about the governments that

have purchased this off the software and use it out there. you know, whatever purposes has any of them, essentially been interest back. they've step forward, been chase and, and say we're going to change our practices. has any single country on that list said, hey, sorry, we shouldn't be doing this. no, that's what i was saying. to very depressing but even country, but i mean, we would expect take action such as french because they were talking to the printer that the crazy stock is the same for me to wear targeted in mexico. the current president of the noise close circle was targeted. but their response has been so weak, so you know, so new to then, you know, we're, we're really stablish or call me here. we're going to investigate the some into you only think the french government. that's fine to confirm the findings of the

security lab because they also went to explode the, the, the my phone of people that concluded that their phones, that indeed been a, been hacked by the guys. so they've done that one thing. but no, the government has been remarkably weak and that's, that's the biggest problem in my view. and if i may, i have to follow up on it so you know it to be your own. and it's so really it's due diligence. what we are covering right now is really a form of corporate, concrete, c t in human rights, violations committed by the state. they can just pretend that they did not know what dana, do you think that modern society is going to be able to make sure up those ethical dimensions of how we use facial recognition software to find lost kids and not use

them as a way to control and control everyone in society, i mean are, is, is the essential inevitability of acknowledge being the enemy. is that what we're talking about here? technology is always going to advance the key. he is now, it is bad so much further ahead of laws and people even facebook, you know, that's going around for a long time now. and legislators still can't figure out how to make it stop abuse the products. so our lawmakers right listens at every level, need to need to be able to catch up and rein these things and we did it with nuclear weapons to a large degree. we did it with other sorts of weapons. and this, these are all weapons. so we need to, we need to confront, and we need to confine, well, we will end it there. i really appreciate the conversation and your candor. washington post reporter dana priest, amnesty international secretary,

general august column art and citizen lab senior researcher john scott rawlton. thank you all so much for being with us today. thank you so much. so what's the bottom line? tech advances like artificial intelligence, big data, facial recognition, and the cloud are double edged swords. they do make our lives easier, but they're also weapons used by states that control and monitor us. this is exactly what's going on with n s o group, and pegasus. just know this. if a government wants to find you, it will. you think you're what that messages are encoded, and you have software that will protect you. think again, russian president vladimir putin might have nailed it when he said that the facade of democracy is over. he and most leaders are active cheerleaders for liberal states that don't care what citizens want, and they definitely don't care about your privacy. honestly, there's not much we can do. just remember that your phone is your frenemy, half friend, half enemy, and that's the bottom line. ah,

on county calling from soon as yet to south africa, the pandemic has reopened preexisting economic political challenges. but the gap between rich and poor nations continues to widen with a lack of privacy. in china is cranked down on capitalism. counting the cost on al jazeera, we understand the differences of cultures across the world. are you taking out era? we're bringing the news and current affairs, entity, ah, era. the hype of english for, for life and electric market for the rich and powerful i was one of the leading specialist work undercover just years investigative unit exposes the inner workings

and key players in the murky underbelly of football finance. he's held something like one in addition has been said that you can make an elephant disappear. i have many of the exciting brazen example i've seen the men who sell football just ah hello i'm. i am live in london a quick look at the headlines now. the taliban has captured the southern afghan city of zuraw. this is the 1st provincial capital to fall to the group since they started focusing on urban areas and kindest on the range of borders. iran and it's a significant trade route for the government video released by the taliban, shows them on the streets around the city as it was captured, bought suggests about.