I have the disadvantage of not being able to read the article, but the headline, at least, says he's a suspected terrorist, not an actual terrorist.
I know this was in western Europe, not the US, but in the US, the distinction between "suspected" and proven is really very important, because we have a strong track record of suspecting innocent people of being terrorists.
The same distinction applies in any Western democracy. That said, most European countries wouldn't go about tracking vast numbers of people - especially with such a deep intervention there will be courts involved before they are allowed to start tracking. So while the final evidence is not there there certainly will have been quite strong hints else they'd never have gotten the court order.
For me this quote of the investigator being informed by the software manufacturer is the best part of the article:
> "No, that can't be right. Why would they do that?" the official said he asked his contact, thinking it a joke.
Maybe don't buy spyware from malicious actors. It's ridiculous that investigators with this amount of power to invade on suspects most intimate areas of life aren't close to sufficiently briefed.
Does somebody have a source on which agency the European official is supposed to be from? Using spyware that's also used by authoritarian regimes must be a bad joke. Not that our German homebrewn spyware would be any more ethical but I'd have thought that EU level agencies would at least do some level of due diligence.
> I'd have thought that EU level agencies would at least do some level of due diligence.
I don't think the article made any reference to EU level agencies, though. It seemed to only talk about "European officials", "Western agencies", etc., which could be EU-level or local.
the timing is of this article is rather suspect since NSO was recently mass-banned from Facebook...since no ones really commenting on this from the state actor or malware vendor side, i assume we just want to reaffirm the hacking groups business state in 2020
I have the disadvantage of not being able to read the article, but the headline, at least, says he's a suspected terrorist, not an actual terrorist.
I know this was in western Europe, not the US, but in the US, the distinction between "suspected" and proven is really very important, because we have a strong track record of suspecting innocent people of being terrorists.