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A branch of the Israeli cyber intelligence company NSO Group near the southern Israeli town of Sapir, August 24, 2021. Image: AP / Sebastian Scheiner

October 24, 2021

How Cyberespionage Became Just Another Office Job

“People won’t think too deeply about it because they’re making good money and working in a nice office all day.”

This summer a coalition of seventeen media organizations published a series of articles indicting the NSO Group, an Israeli cyberespionage company that has targeted journalists, politicians, and human rights workers via its Pegasus spyware. Outrage echoed worldwide. Within Israel’s insular high-tech community, however, few seemed alarmed by the news.

Indeed, as cultural anthropologist Sophia Goodfriend details in a new essay, military-grade spying on civilians has in many ways become just another office job. In a culture of hip, high-tech affluence—fueled by a revolving door between elite military intelligence units and private companies—ethical reflection inevitably takes a back seat to profit. “It’s not that rare here in Tel Aviv,” J, an ex-developer at a spyware firm told Goodfriend. “You might be selling software to a company that’s not respecting human rights, but people won’t think too deeply about it because they’re making good money and working in a nice office all day.”

Today’s reading list situates this powerful expose in our rich archive on privacy, democracy, and the rise of the state surveillance apparatus. From Elaine Scarry on the Patriot Act to Evgeny Morozov on personal data and a host of essays on the NSA, Snowden, and more, the pieces below explore the urgent ethical stakes of a world increasingly threatened by disturbing new forms of surveillance.

Sophia Goodfriend

In the high-tech culture of Tel Aviv, military-grade spying on civilians has become just another office job.

Matthew Longo

We have surrendered the cherished value of “innocent until proven guilty” for the security logic that we are all “risky until proven safe.”

Evgeny Morozov

By routinely giving away a huge amount of personal data, everyday Internet users might already have become law enforcement’s greatest ally.

Elaine Scarry

The double requirement of the Constitution—that people's lives be private and government actions be public—is turned inside out by the Patriot Act.

Elizabeth Goitein

On the legal and ethical scope of surveillance.

Reed Hundt

Framing surveillance as a tradeoff between privacy and security is a dead end for democracy.

Pamela S. Karlan

On New Challenges to the Fourth Amendment.

Elizabeth Goitein

In the post-Snowden world, it is hard to imagine a more consequential fork in the road.

William E. Scheuerman

Is it naïve to see whistleblowing as a form of civil disobedience?

Elizabeth Goitein

The newest report sees nothing illegal about warrantless collection of Americans’ international calls and e-mails.

Our weekly themed Reading Lists compile the best of Boston Review’s archive. Sign up for our newsletters to get them straight to your inbox before they appear online.

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