(New York) The Supreme Court of the United States has validated Meta’s lawsuit against the Israeli company NSO, accused of having used WhatsApp servers to set up its Pegasus spyware.
NSO had seized the highest US court to request the cancellation of these proceedings, on the grounds that he was working on behalf of foreign governments and should, as such, benefit from legal immunity.
He thus intended to put an end to the civil action brought by Meta (Facebook at the time) in October 2019 before a federal court in Oakland (California).
But the Supreme Court, in an opinion dated Friday but published Monday, refused to examine the case and thus dismissed, in fact, the Israeli company.
The parent company of WhatsApp accused NSO of having penetrated its messaging servers and of having, through this, installed Pegasus on the mobile phones of 1,400 people, without their knowledge.
An article from wall street journal revealed, several months later, that NSO was operating on behalf of European states.
The latter were monitoring a suspect in connection with the Islamic State group and suspected of preparing an attack during the Christmas holidays.
According to investigators, quoted by the daily, by publicly revealing the surveillance and individually warning the 1,400 people followed, including the main suspect, Meta had slowed the progress of the investigation.
“We are grateful to the Supreme Court for rejecting NSO’s unfounded appeal,” Meta reacted in a statement sent to AFP.
“We strongly believe he is violating US law and must be held accountable for these unlawful actions,” the company continued.
“Meta has repeatedly disrupted the ability of authorities to legally investigate uses of WhatsApp to commit crimes and acts of terror,” an NSO spokeswoman said.
“We are confident that the courts will establish that the use of Pegasus by its customers was legal,” she explained.
NSO has been accused, for several years, of having allowed the surveillance, by governments, of militants, activists, journalists and opponents.
In July 2021, a coordinated multi-media investigation revealed a list of over 50,000 names of individuals who may have been monitored through Pegasus.
In November 2021, Apple sued NSO in California federal justice, accusing the Israeli company of having implanted Pegasus on iPhones.