Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Of Course... the FBI Can Launch Pegasus Cell Phone Targeting With Appointment of Special Counsel


If you read the article about the “Pegasus Project”, spyware created to infect cell phones that was marketed by Israeli intelligence through a company called NSO {Go Deep Here}, then you essentially know the background.  Pegasus is “no click” targeting spyware that can be deployed against cellular phones, simply by inputting the phone number and transmitting to it.

The Guardian previously reported, “Claudio Guarnieri, who runs Amnesty International’s Security Lab, said once a phone was infected with Pegasus, a client of NSO could in effect take control of a phone, enabling them to extract a person’s messages, calls, photos and emails, secretly activate cameras or microphones, and read the contents of encrypted messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal.”

Pegasus was deployed to target tens-of-thousands of cell phones by the people who Israel sold the spyware to.  The Guardian, and a group of allied leftists in media, were previously granted access to a leaked batch of 50,000 phone numbers that the Pegasus software was operating in.

In a recent update from the New York Times they stated, “[it] has been used by police and intelligence services to hack the phones of drug kingpins and terrorists, but gained notoriety when it was revealed that governments, like Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Hungary and India, had deployed it against political dissidents, journalists and human rights workers.

It was also recently revealed the U.S. FBI under Director Chris Wray purchased the Pegasus program for “FBI experiments” and “exploration” into how the spyware program could be used domestically.

The FBI was initially reluctant to reveal their ownership of the Pegasus program, however, within FOIA documents related to the potential for domestic surveillance and concerns about fourth amendment constitutional protections, the FBI admitted they retain the capability – but promised it has not been deployed.

(New York Times) – […] The Times revealed in January that the F.B.I. had purchased Pegasus in 2018 and, over the next two years, tested the spyware at a secret facility in New Jersey. Since the bureau first purchased the tool, it has paid approximately $5 million to NSO.

Since that story was published, F.B.I. officials, including Mr. Wray, have gone further than they did during the closed meeting with senators last December. They acknowledged that the bureau did consider deploying Pegasus, though they still emphasized that the F.B.I.’s main goal was to test and evaluate it to assess how adversaries might use it. (read more)

Now, stay with me…

The FBI is not saying they will not use Pegasus, they simply said they would not use the spyware outside of the legal framework for deployment without legal and valid investigative baselines.   Put another way, if there was a court ordered search warrant, Pegasus would be a tool for use in criminal investigations.

The latest discussions of Pegasus came around four days after the U.S. election, in a New York Times article November 12th.  We know the general use of the New York Times as it pertains to the DOJ/FBI and their domestic public relations efforts.  [Broadly, Main Justice (DOJ/FBI) use NYT/Politico, CIA use WaPo and State Dept use CNN]

Consider the timing of November 12th against the backdrop of Main Justic announcing the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith November 18.  Media narratives often follow a data frequency, a rhyme or signal that you can sense amid the background operations.

So, here we have: (1) Pegasus, a stealth tool for surveillance and extraction of investigative evidence that can be deployed, covertly, without the target having any idea they are exposed.  (2) We have concrete evidence the FBI has the Pegasus tool, and an understanding it would not be deployed without legally authorized authorities.  And (3) we have a special counsel created to investigate congress under the auspices of the J6 ‘insurrection’….  Can you see where this is going?

The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the ongoing investigation into whether any person or entity violated the law in connection with efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021, as well as any matters that arose or might arise directly from this investigation or that are within the scope of [Special Counsel Regulations 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a)]. (pdf)

The special counsel appointment essentially means that congressional representatives are under investigation; and search warrants on their phones, text messages, emails, etc could be authorized.  Then we overlay using DOJ-NSD defined terms of “national security threat” (that’s why they emphasized insurrection) and we find the pathway to gain legal search warrants on an incoming congressional caucus.  Then the possibilities for Pegasus.

They didn’t just think this up overnight.  They are using J6 as a weapon against their losing the House to republicans.  The Democrats are now structurally targeting Republicans with the appointment of Jack Smith.   The executive is now investigating the legislative branch; the legal structure of this eliminates the separation of powers issue.

The DOJ is not investigating republicans, they are investigating defined criminals; insurrectionists that are national security threats, that happen to be republicans.  See how that works?

Contrast these recent events, tools and discoveries against the backstory of how the modern surveillance state was created {Go Deep}.   Then overlay their recent Pegasus capabilities against the backdrop of a weaponized DOJ and FBI now targeting political opposition in congress.

In the decades before 9/11/01 the intelligence apparatus intersected with government, influenced government, and undoubtedly controlled many institutions with it. The legislative oversight function was weak and growing weaker, but it still existed and could have been used to keep the IC in check. However, after the events of 9/11/01, the short-sighted legislative reactions opened the door to allow the surveillance state to weaponize against domestic enemies.

After the Patriot Act was triggered, not coincidentally only six weeks after 9/11, a slow and dangerous fuse was lit that ends with the intelligence apparatus being granted a massive amount of power.  Simultaneously the mission of the intelligence community now encompassed monitoring domestic threats as defined by the people who operate the surveillance system.

The problem with assembled power is always what happens when a Machiavellian network takes control over that power and begins the process to weaponize the tools for their own malicious benefit. That is exactly what the network of President Barack Obama did.

The Obama network took pre-assembled intelligence weapons (we should never have allowed to be created) and turned those weapons into political tools for his radical and fundamental change. The target was the essential fabric of our nation.

Ultimately, this corrupt political process gave power to create the Fourth Branch of Government, the Intelligence Branch. From that perspective the fundamental change was successful. (more)

This is the scale of corrupt political compromise on both sides of the DC dynamic that we are up against.  Preserving this system is also what removing Donald Trump and all of the rebellious unaligned freedom believers is all about.

The question now becomes, will anyone in congress do anything about it now that they are within the target zone?