The Spy in Your Phone

The Spy in Your Phone

Al Jazeera (2021)

Film Review

This film concerns Al Jazeera reporter Tamer Almisshal, who learned in mid-2020 that advanced phone spyware was collecting all his passwords, texts, emails and social media posts. He sought help from Citizen’s Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. They discovered his phone had been hacked by Israeli-made Pegasus software. The latter is marketed by the Israeli company NSO Group to United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia to monitor dissident journalists and human rights activists.

Al Jazeera believes that Saudi Arabia used Pegasus to track the movements of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (prior to murdering him in 2018). They believe UAE hacked Almisshal’s phone because of his investigation into the three-year embargo of Qatar by Saudi Arabia and UAE (which ended January 5 – see Arab States Agree to End Three Year Boycott of Qatar.

Citizens Lab ultimately discovered that 36 Al Jazeera journalists had phones infected by Pegasus software.

Citizen Lab first uncovered the existence of Pegasus spyware when it was used to target UAE dissident Ahmed Mansour in 2016. It’s also used to target journalists in African and Latin American countries. Unlike other spyware, Pegasus has “zero click” capability. This means it can download itself (by dialing a phone number) without the user answering, clicking on a link or downloading a file.

The film also reports on a UAE enterprise known as Dark Matter that uses Pegasus to spy on US journalists and activist. The company employs a number of former NSA and CIA officials in their surveillance activities. This, according to NSA whistleblower William Binnie, is illegal without clearance from the contracting agency that employed them.

People who believe their phone is being hacked can contact Citizens Lab at  https://citizenlab.ca/ for assistance.

 

 

The Civil War in Libya

The Lust for Libya: How a Nation Was Torn Apart Part 2

Al Jazeera (2018)

Film Review

Part 2 of Lust for Libya links the 2011 “uprisings” in Libya to the Arab Spring uprisings elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa.

It makes no mention of the CIA role in fomenting and arming the rebellion in Libya, along with the more peaceful 2001 Arab Spring “color revolutions.” See The Arab Spring: Made in the USA

I was surprised to learn the 2011 NATO bombing campaign was spearheaded by French president Nicolas Sarkozy (whose 2007 election campaign was financed by Gaddafi) and former UK prime minister David Cameron. It was they who approached the Obama administration as a third partner.

In total NATO bombers embarked on 20,000 sorties and 67,000 total bombings to virtually destroy Libya’s civilian infrastructure. With US intelligence support, rebel fighters captured, tortured and executed Gaddafi as he was fleeing Tripoli. With his demise, Libya became a failed state as it descended into a civil war between rival armed militias.

Libya’s National Oil Company and its central bank continued to operate, and for some bizarre reason the new de facto government (National Transition Council) granted a salary to all past and present militia fighters – a move that clearly fuels the ongoing war.

Libya has held a number of parliamentary elections since 2011, but none has been able to control the militias or effectively rebuild state institutions.

In 2015, the UN created the government of National Accord, which meets in Tripoli, although any government institutions that continue to operate are run by militias. A CIA-linked exile General Khalifa Hafter has created a rival government run by the Libyan National Army and which has seized the oil ports and all oil production.

France, the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are all supplying Hafter with weapons, in open violation of a UN arms embargo. Italy backs the Government of National Accord because they control natural gas resources Italy depends on – and, to some extent, the flow of African refugees departing from Libya for Italy.

Part 2 begins at 47 minutes.

Anatomy of Modern Corruption: The Clinton Foundation and the Superdelegates

What Hillary Clinton Really Represents

Empire Files (2016)

Film Review

This early 2016 documentary is a virtual encyclopedia of Clinton family corruption. Based entirely on publicly verifiable information, it reveals how Hillary, especially, has based her political career on supporting legislation that specifically benefits her corporate and foreign donors. It also explores the identity of some of the 700 Democratic “superdelegates” who helped deny Bernie Sanders the Democratic nomination – despite overwhelming support he received from voters.

The Clinton Foundation was founded in 1997 with the alleged purpose of providing humanitarian relief after international disasters. Its real purpose, however, was to engage in “crisis capitalism,” a term coined by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine. Following a disasters, such as the 2001 earthquake in India, the Clinton Foundation would waltz in and create a variety of for-profit projects enabling further exploitation of third world resources and labor by Clinton Foundation donors.

Major donors to the Clinton foundation included Exxon, Walmart, Pfizer, Dow, Monsanto, General Electric (GE), Fox News, the Soros Foundation, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. As senator, Clinton rewarded the latter two donors by supporting deregulation that would lead to their bankruptcy in 2008 and a massive taxpayer bailout.

As Secretary of State, Clinton would grant similar favors to Boeing and GE by facilitating overseas sales of their military hardware and to Exxon by heavily promoting the spread of fracking throughout the world.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Republic and Qatar were also big donors to the Clinton Foundation. In all 181 Clinton Foundation donors lobbied Clinton as Secretary of State and most were successful in getting the policies they advocated enacted.

Many of the 700 superdelegates appointed by the Democratic National Committee (to help ensure their hand picked candidates won the Democratic primary) were also corporate lobbyists hoping to benefit financially from a Clinton presidency: among others, the corporate lobbies represented included the Excel pipeline, the private prison industry, Big Pharma and the four main Wall Street banks (City Group, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase).