Quote:Facebook subsidiary WhatsApp has received new high-caliber support in its case against Israeli intelligence company NSO Group. The court case aims to hold NSO Group accountable for distributing its Pegasus spyware on the popular WhatsApp messaging service with the intent of planting its spyware on phones of journalists and human rights workers.
 
A group of companies–including tech giants Google, Microsoft and Cisco Systems–have filed a legal brief called an amicus to support WhatsApp against NSO’s alleged illegal cyber-surveillance activities, including selling “cyber-surveillance as a service” to foreign governments and other companies. VMWare and GitHub also signed the brief along with LinkedIn–a Microsoft subsidiary–and the Internet Association, which represents dozens of tech companies, including Amazon, Facebook and Twitter.
 
Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed an amicus brief of its own to support WhatsApp, asserting that the case is not merely a battle of tech companies, but has a potential outcome that will have “profound implications for millions of Internet users and other citizens of countries around the world.”
 
Amicus briefs are known as “amicus curiae” in legal terms, which is Latin for “friend of the court.” The briefs are common in appellate cases to make points or provide new information that the principle litigators in the case may not have addressed.
 
In this case, the briefs are aimed at lending support to WhatsApp in an effort to convince the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to hold NSO accountable for its activities. The current case in front of the court is an appeal for immunity that the NSO filed after a federal judge allowed a suit WhatsApp originally filed in October 2019 to move forward earlier this year.
 
NSO President Shiri Dolev has defended the company, saying it should be protected against legal action since it sells its tools to governments and law enforcement who use them to go after criminals and find victims of disasters, among other benevolent activities.