all the different groups bringing on to me to ones you know, you'll enjoy money. my name is just for prizes planning here. yes. yes. who every my nigerian on august the ah, ah, i'm how them. i don't have a headlines on al jazeera, the taliban says it sees they seconds. provincial capital in afghanistan that's facing escalates across the country. it comes just a day after the group over run the city of orange governments ascending reinforcements to re take control of ship. aaron, doing that, but the enemies of f canister cannot arise the history of his gun stone and they

cannot take our honors away from us. and clearly my promises that we will find the killers and god willing we will punish them poor. everyone should know that we are standing in our place like a mountain. their waists will be broken because they have no message other than evil. they fill coffins with young people and send them like savages. this is not humanity. we stand for the humanity, life and dignity of afghanistan, and this is our village. and charlotte, bella says more nice and cobble a government affiliation source has told us that sure the gun has fallen, although it is quite nuanced and fluid. the taliban say that they took control of the city on saturday afternoon. they took control of the police office, the intelligence offices, the governors compound. they even broke into the prison and released a number of prisoners. now the government says that they don't have full control of the city, that security forces remain at the port and that they are planning

a counter offensive. they have started, it strikes and that they are sending in special forces and reinforcements for this contra fences to try to take the city. if sure, the gone back, not if it is confirmed to be fallen, it would be the 2nd provincial capital to fool and f gonna start in just 2 days. and to put that into context for you, the last time a provincial capital fell was in 2015, and that was condos. and that was very briefly the very concerning for the afghan government. we were with the interior minister earlier, you had to rochelle for an emergency meeting with the defense minister. and then later president ghani prison got also met with marshall austin, leader from jos jan province. as the government here looks to see what they can do to push the telephone back out of the city. now that is not the only place where there is heavy fighting. there is strikes and a lot of gunfire in the cities of kansas city, herat, and also lash cargo. in helmand. 3 large wildfires are burning across greece,

threatening several towns and cities. low course on the 2nd largest island of via have been joining for fighters to baffle the flames. hundreds of others have been evacuated by bolts. thousands of people have fled areas, just north of athens, and the capital itself is under threat. has believe there has been this rather has warned, the lebanese group will retaliate against any future is where the air strikes full of exchange of rocket far between has been law and the israeli army. thursday's air strikes were the 1st targeting lebanese villages since 2006. and how does men have hill? yesterday's operation was not in response to the killing about 2 members. we are not seeking a war, but we are ready for it and we do not fear it. yesterday's operation was aimed at consolidating the equation of deterrents. chose to carry out the operation during the day in order not to scare the lebanese residence. and our response yesterday was directly linked to the israeli air strikes and its object. it was clear,

it was necessary for the response to be as ready as trying to be quick, or else i would have lost its value that tens of thousands of people in france of joined protests against the new cove at 19 health pass. for monday they needed to get into cinema's, restaurant bars and other public places. opponent said, infringing on their civil liberties. president emanuel not cruel, is hoping you rules from encourage people to get vaccinated. colombian officials are allowing stranded migrant. some leave the coastal turn of nicole clee or intense sizes. people have been stuck there for weeks, waiting for boats to take them to the border with panama. the time has traditionally been a transit points for those heading to north america. the land border between the 2 countries known as the dorian gap is one of the most dangerous jungles in the world . and so that he up to these to stay with us here on al jazeera,

the bottom line is up next. oh ok. 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 ca, shoji was monitored by this very software. so to his fiance, or the lives of social activists in journalist today in 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 column ard. 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 for 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 cereals 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 emmanuel 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, ought to look like, given what you help discover and help disclose. i think 2 of the dimensions to the right, re some 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 told them of individuals being targeted right now, we the latest discovery, what we are finding out is that the scale of the phenomenon,

the global reach of the pickets, is find where and of the government using it. it, he's a systematic problem. it teasers permit formal valuation. 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 viral right to privacy. what we are also finding out is that governments are violating the right to freedom of expression. they are violating of freedom of the media. they are bio politi core, right? because a number of political parties, members of the, your position of different countries being targeted. they are so important

in potentially violating knife because of that nature. so step 2 of the fall, great job ration such as duction these appearances and killings 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 are potentially very much computation war and p. so that i think he's the latest regulation. and the fact that we are sold by the equipped to respond to it as a global society. well, thank you, dan,

a 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 a no says this is a weapon, is real, requires that the ministry of defense approve each failed each country because of its instigation in some military grade software. and that tells you something

important, it's very powerful, it's hard to detect and pay. this is the group that owns it, selling 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're also selling it. we learn to faltering democracies mexico, india hungry places where we'd like to see democratic would like to see democracy strength and not weekend. and yet this i where 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. and 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 type of regulation, which would mean also some type of transparency right now. most companies 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. and it 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 liberal 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 so 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 sell 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 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 for this cell phone, which is basically attached to them, they may sensor 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 bring. 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 g o. like amnesty 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 e, 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 have bought 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 is 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 hand. i think what we are missing right now is the county and the lack

of commitment on the part of government to take action. i think most government really hoping that the wave of attention we wait and that the we continue be because usually ease in it is up to you. it is up to us to try to and oh, actually to me mind. in fact, why don't we must bring a case to court and then the toner least activities are going to court on the basis of the regulations. most do that. they need, we need to have or judges, we need 20. of course, there are been a couple of good cases related to somebody else, including target the needs to be more if we can be protected by our governments. let's try to be contacted by o. l judges and by our court. society must get talking lines. we

know you did say very when, but few government set up an intentional or an interest in doing it. i think the week before this was revealed in france and you know, was adopted on target assuming, and some other things that made it even easier for both of those to, to get involved in still else without the level of protection that we require at the moment is a big problem globally, there is no control over that industry, atlanta mission level, but it is feeding on the fact that domestically nationally, the more crises us or the state of mary pool or protection against target to somebody. so i've asked people who hopes as jaundiced, we most really act so that they all know is being adopted at national level that

protect us against targets of soviet, by our 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, which was not the case in my day. and i'm still surprised at how young students are surprised at how big their digital exhaustive, 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 go 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 surveillance industry now as part of the global campaign of censorship in so many countries just like john the same fear, fear equal censorship. no censorship, but also 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, john, i 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 track your marker shoji and

his fiance, they've denied a 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 at citizen lab investigate a case of a nation state operations and governments hacking gone, wild journalists are among the targets they among the targets. they are the through line in so many cases of hacking, we observe and it's no accident. first, they do the work, they go out and they find sources and 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 will 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 it 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 the soft, the software and used it out there. whatever purposes has any of them, essentially been introspective. step forward, ben, 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. it to me very depressing, but even country, i mean, we would expect take action such as french because they, we have to get to the printer the, the crazy we're starting to see me. students were 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 gonna stop. you should call me here. we're going to investigate the summons. or you only think the french government that's fine to confirm the findings of the security lab because they also went to explore the the, the barriers people that concluded that their phones that indeed been a been hacked by, by against the so they've done that one thing but no, the government has been, i've been remarkably weak and that's, that's the biggest problem in my view. and if i may, i had to follow up on it so you know it to be your own and it's so failing, 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 kind of 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 product. so our lawmakers write the sins 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, the 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's 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 friend of me,

half friend, half enemy. and that the bottom line, ah, in the wake of the coronel race, right, how much can someone take before they crack the fight? recognition is crucial. we needed corner heads to prevail, brothers in lieu of angry fable. and that was said, the religion and the thing that was community one was to be just respect to al jazeera explodes, the history and struggles of the lebanese community in australia. once upon a time in punch bowl on al jazeera, the hype of english football lies in elicit market for the rich and powerful. what are 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 see. the men who so football on i was just ah, i don't know, he didn't, don't have the headlines on al jazeera, the taliban says it sees they seconds. provincial capital in afghanistan, those fighting escalates across the country becomes just a day after the group over run the city of surrounds the government to send and we enforcements to we take control of the sharon doing that, but the enemies of f canister cannot arise. the history of

a gun stone and they can not take our owners away from us. and clearly my promises that we will.