❗️Secret Israeli spy tech is invading US police fleets to secretly vacuum up your phone data
State and local police forces throughout the US have quietly ramped up the procurement of cell-site simulators from Cognyte Solutions, an Israeli intelligence tech firm with roots tracing back to Verint Technologies and the Israeli intelligence outfit, Unit 8200.
These portable devices mimic cell towers to intercept unencrypted traffic across 5G and Wi-Fi networks. According to reporting by Hayden Long for Responsible Statecraft, agencies from Florida to Albuquerque have adopted the hardware, alongside recent major contracts secured with the police departments of Washington, D.C. and New York, as well as the Texas State Police.
Cognyte and its predecessor, Verint, are far from outliers when it comes to Israeli companies implicated in facilitating human rights abuses. Israeli military and security firms have long been accused of using Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza as a testing ground for surveillance and military technologies, raising serious concerns about their products even before they are exported more widely.
Despite the Israeli government’s role in approving and licensing arms exports, Israeli firms continue to face international scrutiny over alleged misconduct. Cellebrite, which markets technology capable of extracting data from locked phones, and NSO Group, uses Pegasus spyware which can remotely take control of smartphones without requiring user interaction.
Chip Gibbons of Defending Rights and Dissent noted, "I can’t imagine why law enforcement would want to use this technology unless the goal is ... to create a dragnet under the mistaken belief that new technology is somehow exempt from existing protections."
