All language subtitles for PBS.FRONTLINE.2023.Global.Spyware.Scandal.Exposing.Pegasus.2.of.2.1080p.x265.AAC.MVGroup.Forum.[eng]

Pegasus... Pegasue...
Pegasue...

NARRATOR: In collaboration
with Forbidden films, a two-part

investigation...

This story would be huge...

NSO was established with an
ambition to make the world a
safer place...

NARRATOR: Into powerful
spyware...

It is a military weapon used
against civilians.

NARRATOR: Used around the
world...

There is no control over how
countries use it, and they have

been using it in the worst way
you could imagine.

NARRATOR: Now on FRONTLINE
part two of "“Global Spyware
Scandal: Exposing Pegasus."

♪ ♪

(sirens blaring in distance)

When you have your hands on a
technology like this,

the power must be
quite intoxicating.

You can get into the phone

of most people in the world.

And no one's looking over your
shoulder.

(distant siren blaring)

LAURENT (speaking French):

♪ ♪

(multiple international
journalists saying "Pegasus")

It's like a person over your
shoulder,

a person who will see
what you are seeing,

a person who will watch what
you are watching, your emails,

your encrypted communication,

everything.

So once you are infected,
you're trapped.

♪ ♪

It was against

so many people in civil society

who clearly were not terrorists
or criminals.

And you got a real sense

that it was a free-for-all.

De acuerdo con la pesquisa
acabada

por "The Washington Post,"
"The Guardian,"

"Le Monde" y otros medios...

A joint investigation
by 17 news outlets

and Forbidden Stories...
Activists, lawyers

and journalists are reportedly
among those

who've been targeted by the
phone spyware...

Phone numbers belonging to
some big name politicians.

(speaking Mandarin):

NSO says they sell the
software to governments

for legitimate purposes,
fighting terrorism

or violating local laws.

You have here

a go-to spy service for tyrants.

♪ ♪

(distant traffic)

♪ ♪

(indistinct phone chatter)

When we started analyzing the
list,

we saw a lot of French numbers.

More than 1,000 potentially
targeted by Morocco.

There were journalists,

lawyers, activists,
but not only.

We also saw members of the
French government,

and the president, Macron,
himself.

We immediately realized that
this story would be huge.

(speaking French)

Oh!

We knew politicians were on
the list.

And to prove that they're...
actually been infected

with Pegasus,
we needed their phones.

But politicians wouldn't hand
you their phone that easily,

specifically, if you're
an investigative journalist.

♪ ♪

LELOUP (speaking French):

(conversing in French)

Mm-hmm.

(makes explosion sound)

LELOUP:

(train announcer
speaking French)

♪ ♪

UNTERSINGER
(speaking French):

LELOUP:

We don't know exactly who in
Morocco was using Pegasus.

There were Moroccan dissidents
on the list,

even the king of Morocco
himself was on the list.

But we do know that NSO only
sells to governments

and government agencies.

We were reaching out to another
dimension of the project.

We were at this stage entering
a space,

a dangerous space,

where we were talking about a
country, a state,

attacking another one.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Each time you look at how

a client of NSO Group used the
technology,

it tells you something about
that government.

In the UAE,

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid
Al Maktoum is

prime minister, vice president
and, of course,

the ruler of Dubai.

Here is an autocratic leader.

Massively powerful.

Princess Latifa is the daughter
of Sheikh Mohammed.

She had for a long time been,
by her account,

unhappy about her life in Dubai.

She had been...
incarcerated, effectively,

by her father's regime.

I'm making this video

because it could be the last
video I make, yeah.

(sighs)

This video can help me because

all my father cares about is his
reputation.

He will kill people to protect
his own reputation.

He, he only cares about himself
and his ego.

The Princess Latifa concocted

this extraordinary attempted
escape

that involved jet skis,

a yacht, and a trip
to the Indian Ocean.

I mean, it's an audacious thing
to do.

Incredible, even,
that she attempted it.

I think remarkable
that it nearly succeeded.

♪ ♪

The day after Princess Latifa
went missing from Dubai,

we saw her number
entered in the list.

And in the days after that,
as she was traveling

toward India on this yacht,

her friends, people she knew,
people within her orbit,

their phone numbers also
appeared on the list.

If you look at the dates
and times

that her number and those
of people

close to her were entered
into the system,

you have something that has
to be more than a coincidence.

Eight days after her escape,

Indian special forces boarded
the yacht,

and then the princess was
forcibly returned to Dubai.

We don't know exactly why the
attempted escape didn't succeed,

but NSO's technology was,
it seems,

from the evidence we've seen,

one of the tools that was being
used by the state

in a desperate attempt to find
Princess Latifa,

kidnap her, and return her back
to Dubai.

We tried hard to get hold of
a phone Latifa had used

but we couldn't.

So we contacted her friends
and her associates

to ask if we could check their
phones

to see if they'd been
targeted with Pegasus.

♪ ♪

Given how much David Haigh was
working on the Latifa case,

it wasn't a surprise when we
discovered that

there was Pegasus activity on
his phone.

I was infected on 3rd of
August 2020 with Pegasus,

I believe at 3:00 a.m.
in the morning

and the next day as well.

The fact that you can be
hacked...

on British soil,

and that they can do that,
it's, it's frightening.

It really is.

(waves crashing)

My name is David Haigh,

from Detained International.

We founded the campaign

to free the Dubai princess,
Princess Latifa, in 2018.

David Haigh was actually
imprisoned in Dubai

for alleged fraud,

and it was after his release

that he became
a human rights campaigner.

Princess Latifa began to message
him

after her failed attempt at
escape.

This is a picture that Latifa
drew of the jail villa,

Villa 96 in Jumeirah,
Dubai, near the Burj al-Arab.

Um, and you can see here,
"beach in this direction"

where she was held captive.

(on laptop): This villa has
been converted into a jail.

All the windows are barred shut,
I can't open any window.

Uh, there's five policemen
outside,

and two policemen inside the
house.

I don't know what can happen to
me

and how long this will last

and if they decide
to release me,

like, how my life will be?

But, um, I'm not safe at all.

♪ ♪

That week before I was
hacked,

our secret contact with
Latifa

had stopped suddenly.

The seven hours became a day
and then two days.

And then we start to worry
because

that was not normal.

We had recorded a lot of videos
and a lot of evidence Latifa had

that could be used to tell the
world about her predicament,

the fact she'd been held
hostage.

At the time I was hacked,
we were in London

with the videos that Latifa
recorded, the evidence,

to meet media to decide

if we were going to use it at
that time or not.

It was effectively dynamite
evidence on that phone.

♪ ♪

The fact that they know your
location...

...someone could be listening
to us now,

and seeing what we're doing.

And it's that,

sitting in the back
of your head every day.

We can't let

NSO and the governments that
abuse their system,

get away with what they've done.

Because if we do,
and if nothing happens,

and people are not brought to
justice,

people are not put in jail and
people are not taken to court,

the next company and the next
company, and the next company,

wherever they may be,
will do exactly the same.

And it will just carry on,
but get worse.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(brakes screeching)

AMITAI (speaking Hebrew):

♪ ♪

(voice distorted): Israel has
this advantage

of not only developing new
technologies and weaponry,

but testing it live.

And this is something Israel
knows

it can use to sell outside.

When you want to control

a huge population like we do
with Palestinians,

you have to have assets
everywhere.

So everyone can be a target,
because

you don't want only the,
I don't know,

terrorist from the Hamas,
but also

maybe his neighbor or the...

his cousin,
or the person who sells milk

in the corner of the street.

If you want to recruit human
agents,

you need to collect

their weaknesses,

things that you can use
to blackmail.

And so part of what 8200 does
is to collect

this blackmail, potential
information about everybody.

If you're gay,

or if you have medical,
a special medical condition,

or you have financial problems,
or someone

from your family has one of
those,

then that's something we can use
against you

to blackmail you and get you
to cooperate.

Israeli intelligence has a
strategic view

of how their employees
should be used

after they leave their employ.

They promote them.

They want them to start these
companies.

And they see a deep
communications,

a continued relationship between
the government

and their former employees

as valuable to Israel's
national security interest.

(siren blaring)

There's a lot of evidence
to suggest

that NSO Group had the direct
backing

in support of Bibi Netanyahu's
government.

In order to sell its product to
governments around the world,

it required permits,

effectively licenses from
the Israeli Defense Ministry.

I decided several years ago
to turn Israel into one of

the five cyber powers
of the world.

In order for the companies to
develop,

they need to make--
what do they need to make?

(distant): Money.

Money!

They need to make money.

Now the easiest way to make sure
that they don't make money

is one, high taxes, right?

What's the other one?

Regulations!

Have you ever heard
of regulations?

We have a problem with
regulations.

So the policy we have is keep
taxes low

and keep regulations low.

Minimize regulations.

There is no industry more
susceptible

and more inviting of regulations
than cybersecurity.

It's like weapons--
it is a weapon.

♪ ♪

(speaking Hebrew)

The timeline for Hungary is
that

the visit was in July 2017,

and the operation

of Hungary, we know almost the
exact date

by the database
of Forbidden Stories.

It's February 2018.

So, similarities.

(speaking Hebrew)

(audience applauds)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Going through all the numbers
on the list was a huge job.

More than 15,000 of the
numbers were in Mexico.

And one of those numbers

belonged to a journalist
who was murdered

just weeks after he was put on
the list.

Was Pegasus used in that case

to spy on a journalist,

or to geolocate him?

¿Sabes que Cecilio Pineda es
también en la lista?

Sí, ¿el que fue asesinado?

Sí, es en la lista, sí.

Uf, qué fuerte.

♪ ♪

En México es muy grave que se
haya usado Pegasus como se usó.

Me remito al caso
de Cecilio Pineda.

♪ ♪

Y The Pegasus Project lo mostró
públicamente

que su teléfono fue ingresado,

días antes o semanas
antes de haber sido cometido

al asesinato.

El estado de Guerrero es
una de las entidades

más impactadas
por el crimen organizado.

Hay lugares en donde
literalmente

el estado ya no tiene dominio.

Las autoridades en realidad

están pues mezcladas
con el crimen organizado

y hay pues actividad
del narcotráfico,

hay actividad diversa,
delincuencial.

(dog barking)

De acuerdo
con el reporte de la policía

varios sujetos armados
llegaron a un autolavado

donde el periodista
Cecilio Pineda

esperaba que le entregaran
su camioneta y le dispararon.

(dog barking)

No me sorprende que Cecilio
Pineda estuviera en esa lista

porque el tema que se estaba
tocando era serio.

Pues calentando, ya estamos
cansados de violencia.

Pero nadie, eh,
tiene segura su vida.

La mera verdad, vivimos en
una región donde estamos solos.

En una región en donde
todas las autoridades

pues no te... no te apoyan.

Y aquí uno tiene que defenderse
con sus propias uñas.

Mm.

Buenas tardes,
amigos de Tierra Caliente,

pues aquí ya de regreso después
de estar en dos municipios

de la región y pues
nos encontramos con esto.

Cecilio había hecho un video.

Venía en camino y quiso dar
un mensaje anticipado

de lo que iba a presentar
después.

Él dijo que unas horas después

iba a mostrar el video

de la relación que había
entre el gobierno del Estado

y el grupo del Tequilero.

Después de eso ya no presentó
nada, a él lo asesinaron.

♪ ♪

Ese día, este...

♪ ♪

Y al llegar a la clínica,

este, yo quise pasar a verlo.

Entonces me dice la señorita,
dice: <« No,

lo están atendiendo ».

Entonces yo pensé
pues que iba a estar bien.

Dije, no, pues nada más fue,
pues algo...

Ya como a los tres minutos
sale el doctor,

dice, <« No », dice,
<« pues ya... ya falleció ».

Y es la única vez en mi vida
que me he desmayado.

Cuando volví,
pues estaba toda aturdida.

Dije, pues no sabía que...
Y pues ya,

fue cuando me volvió a decir
pues que había fallecido

Que, este...

Que ya había llegado
prácticamente casi muerto pues.

♪ ♪

You can only prove infection

if you do forensics on the phone

and find traces of Pegasus,
but in many cases,

the phone was not findable.

That was the case
of Cecilio Pineda.

No se puede afirmar
categóricamente

que lo que se obtuvo de
el posible espionaje

haya sido lo que provocó
el asesinato.

Pero tampoco podemos
ser ingenuos.

♪ ♪

(bird caws)

We were able to set up a date
where we all agreed

that will be the day
of the publication.

In 2021, July 18.

And we knew that the most
dangerous phase was

those two weeks before the
publication,

when you knock on the door of
the NSO group to say

"We are Forbidden Stories,
we are 80 reporters,

we investigate your businesses

and we have evidence
of a global misuse

that is threatening democracy.

(speaking French)

They can come blackmail the
source, they can hack me,

one of the person of the team,

they can follow us.

They can come into our offices.

By now the members of the
consortium

had managed to do forensics on
over 60 phones

connected to numbers
on the list,

and we had forensic proof that
at least 37 phones

had been targeted or infected
with Pegasus.

The more publication day was
approaching,

the more paranoid we all became.

Before publication we already
had that habit

to switching off the phones or
even our computers

before having any conversation
about the investigation,

so most of the day were living
and working

without our phones,
or even our computers.

So we had different ways of
working,

we had other devices we could
work on.

LAURENT:

I remember that day clicking
on the button "send."

I was sending the official
request for comment

from the 80 reporters

with dozens of questions inside.

We were giving a deadline to
the NSO group,

and to all the state actors.

And we were expecting some
answers.

♪ ♪

(phone beeps)

(on phone): Hello?

This is Laurent Richard
from Forbidden Stories.

How are you doing?

(on phone): Yeah, I am good.

Yeah, thank you for taking
the time to answer.

I was just wondering if you,

um, are planning to answer
our questions.

(on phone): Well, you can
see it in your email now.

Yes?
Okay, I see it.

Thank you.
Okay, thank you, bye.

Bye.
(phone beeps)

Okay.
What we got

is an email from the NSO Group,

saying that,
"All you think is wrong,

thank you, best regards."

"NSO Group firmly denies false
claims made in your report

which many of them are
uncorroborated theories

"that raise serious doubts about
the reliability of your sources,

as well as the basis
of your story."

But then,

when I woke up in the next
morning,

I opened my phone.

And I saw that NSO sent letters
from lawyers

to most of the partners
at the same time,

on all continents,
to threaten them,

and to tell them that if you
publish anything,

we will sue you.

♪ ♪

It's a bit tense here,
if I'm honest.

Yeah?
Yeah.

Um, we've had a provisional
response

from NSO to
"The Washington Post,"

um, and we will have the formal,
another response

from them to us in about...
15, 20 minutes.

So we're gonna keep this call
really quick.

(voiceover):
Um, the stakes are really high

when you do this kind of
reporting.

Here was a company valued at
over a billion dollars.

And the NSO Group and
its clients, these governments,

were not going to put their
hands up

and confess to this activity.

They were fighting as hard as
they possibly could.

All going well if we're
proceeding with this project.

I think the crunch point,
really,

is going to be
in the next 12 hours.

In the sense of, if we are
proceeding, Paul?

Yeah.

Is that in doubt?

Well, it's always-- it's never
confirmed,

until it's confirmed, right?

(typing on keyboard)

(computer chimes)

We can confirm at least--

(speaking French):

♪ ♪

(door beeps)

ELODIE (speaking French):

(on phone): So Paul,
just to be 100% clear,

you guys are ready
to hit the button

on a version of the story
in 42 minutes?

Of the heads of states story.

Heads of state only.

We're not ready now, but in
42 minutes we will be ready.

(laughs)

Here we were simultaneously
publishing

17 different media
outlets all over the world

in several different languages,

all at the same time,
at the same minute,

the same day after
months of investigating.

The investigation into the
NSO...

(speaking French)

That's okay...

(speaking French)

We've done it.
A tiff!

(chattering in French)

So the story is now live.

An explosive investigation

from the "Washington Post," and
a consortium of media partners.

Activists, lawyers,
and journalists...

(overlapping news reports in
multiple languages)

De la utilización de Pegasus
en el mundo.

(speaking French)

What can be done to protect
our country

from commercial spyware?

The kind of threat that is now
being reported

at the top of the news across
the nation.

There had been reporters
who've been doing stories

on Pegasus for years.

This sort of tipped the scale,

because it was in so
many countries,

it was against so many people in
civil society

who clearly were not terrorists
or criminals.

And you got a real sense

that it was an...
it was a free-for-all.

We even found out afterwards
that the FBI considered using

a version of Pegasus that could
hack into US phones.

But that fell apart and the
Biden administration actually

blacklisted NSO Group.

They've made a bigger deal than
I would have expected against

not just an Israeli company,

but really they're criticizing
the Israeli government

for allowing this to happen,

because it actually could not
happen

without the Israeli
government's permission.

You have here

a go-to spy service for tyrants.

♪ ♪

What the executives of these
companies

and the engineers are hoping for
most

is to make a whole lot of money,

and do it in a way where there's

minimal regulation
and minimal oversight.

A U.S. appeals court is
allowing

WhatsApp messaging
service to move forward

with a lawsuit against NSO group
over allegedly targeting...

Silicon valley has a
big role to play.

Company like WhatsApp, company
like Apple, they are suing NSO.

They are the ones with money.

They are the ones who promise
you safety and security.

All we've seen NSO Group is
deny, deny, deny.

And that's showed up entirely
through

the legal process as well.

The way I think about it is

tech companies can and should
do everything they can

to make their software as secure
as possible.

But at the end of the day,
if there's no consequences

for people who try to break that
software

to commit human rights abuses,

then there will always be people
trying to do it.

It's just like the only solution
to stopping bank robbery

is not to have the best
technology in banks.

Yes, you do that too.

It's also that bank robbers
get caught

and have consequences for trying
to rob banks.

And we need that
for the spyware industry.

♪ ♪

Pegasus spyware is once
again back in the spotlight.

This time for targeting
pro-independence

supporters in Spain...

Several members of Poland's
opposition

have produced evidence they were
hacked by Pegasus software...

This scandal is being dubbed
the Polish Watergate.

In Europe,

we were discovering new victims
of the spyware,

and new countries were accused

of using Pegasus
to spy on their opponents.

At the European parliament,

representatives from NSO agreed
to answer questions

from politicians.

It was the first
time they'd done this.

(speaking German):

We know that NSO is now
on the market.

So maybe they are trying
to polish their image.

That would be interesting
to see.

(indistinct chatter)

(chiming)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On behalf of NSO,

I want to thank the members
of the committee of inquiry

for having us here today.

Before we begin we should note
there are limits

to the information we can share
with the committee and others.

As you know,
NSO is a private company

providing export-controlled
cyber intelligence technologies

only and exclusive
to government agencies

for the purpose of preventing
and investigating terrorism

and other serious crimes.

As a result,

we are unable to share
details about our customers,

as well as the crimes prevented
and criminals tracked

and apprehended using our
technologies

or trade secrets of the
technology.

It is not true that NSO group
operates Pegasus

and collects information about
individuals.

It is not true that NSO Group

sells its technology
to private companies.

The issues that came up about

Jamal Khashoggi,

about President Macron,

the system was not used on those
numbers.

I will go immediately into

the Q&A session of today's
meeting,

we already have 15 members who
have asked for the floor.

Have you ever terminated a
contract

with an EU member state?

We have terminated a contract
with EU member states,

but to get into, again,
the exact numbers...

That's fine, thank you--
next question.

If a country does not give you a
permission to audit,

is that a reason for you to
terminate a contract?

Yes or no?

As stated before,
if they do not allow us

to do the audit
and do not participate

and provide us with information
needed in our investigation,

yes, that is a reason
to terminate a contract.

I can state that we've
terminated

eight customers over the past
several years.

Have the United Arab
Emirates and Saudi Arabia

ever gone through
your due diligence check

and have they passed it?

(person coughs)

As I said, I'm not going to
respond to questions

regarding specific potential
customers.

Given that UAE
and Saudi Arabia

have been using Pegasus
software,

who are legitimate actors
to issue warrants

in these countries according to
your checks?

Again, I repeat it again,

I'm not going to respond
to questions

regarding specific customers.

(speaking Polish)

I cannot and again, I repeat,

I cannot because of various

confidentiality and secrecy
issues,

I cannot get into specific
questions

regarding specific customers
or specific cases.

(speaking Hungarian):

First of all, every customer
that we sell to

goes through the due diligence
review in advance,

and if, and very often
if the concerns are raised

regarding the rule of law--

'cause what we're looking at is
also the rule of law.

And any country that we've
decided to sell to

has been approved in this
manner.

Please, stop the,
stop the storytelling.

I'm going to continue in
Hungarian.

(speaking Hungarian):

(quietly):
Good question.

Again, as I said,

Not "again," it was
a new question, so please.

(clears throat)
I have not said...

we have not said that we
have determined recently

that Hungary is or is not a
secure country.

You did consider it secure

because you sold the stuff
to them!

Excuse me, colleague...
I said, now we will,

Let's keep a little bit of
order in the meeting as well.

I understand there is
frustration,

but you have the concrete
question,

we have a concrete answer,
and, uh, please.

You keep repeating
the same thing,

and there seems to be a complete
disconnect

between reality
and between what you're saying.

This is like, you know,

it's an insult to our
intelligence, sorry.

♪ ♪

(horn honks)

(speaking Hebrew)

(speaking Hebrew):

♪ ♪

AMARAI (speaking Hebrew):

♪ ♪

(indistinct chatter)

(speaking Hebrew):

The bottom line is nobody
regulates these companies.

That's the bottom line.

Technology is just so far ahead
of government regulation

and even of public understanding

of what's happening out there.

It's a wild west.

And this is where we are when
you have

a private security company

meeting state actors with no
regulation

in the cyber civilian space,

and when it's possible to use

military weapons against
civilians.

In some ways, we can talk

about the impact on the company

and say it's been really
profound.

A more pessimistic view would be
to look at the entire industry,

which remains unreformed,
pretty wild,

unregulated...
and NSO may vanish.

But I feel no more secure

talking in front of my phone now
than I did when we first
published.

You know, I don't think these
issues have gone away.

♪ ♪

Go to pbs.org/frontline for a
Q&A with the journalists

at Forbidden Stories who led the
Pegasus investigation.

And once on the phone it can
extract and access everything

from the device.

Everything, so once you are
infected, you're trapped.

And an archive of stories
with our reporting partners

on the Pegasus project.

Connect with FRONTLINE on
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter,

and stream anytime on the PBS
App, YouTube or

pbs.org/frontline.

For more on this and other
Frontline programs visit our

website at pbs.org/frontline.

♪ ♪

Frontline's "Global Spyware
Scandal: Exposing Pegasus"

is available on
Amazon Prime Video.