Comment by bee_rider
3 days ago
If it was for no good reason, would that update your “nothing inherently wrong with selling intelligence tools to a western government?” I do think western governments are generally better, but spying on journalists is bad.
not yet, although I am curious why this specific technology is linked to so many scandals involving journalists. Is it simply because that journalists are interested in stories about journalists and that what makes the news, or a power corrupts scenario.
I believe that similarly to phone tapping, this is a technology that in the wrong hands is dangerous, but it can be very effective against some threats that might make this worthwhile
Western democracies have worked for a century after the invention of phone tapping, and even a few decades after inventing a much more dangerous technology, of massive government or corporate surveillance networks.
Zero click exploit makes the news but it has no implication on most of the population, it's too expensive.
Surveillance of journalists is a way to discourage journalism, because it threatens both the journalists and their sources.
> journalists are interested in stories about journalists
> it has no implication on most of the population
Journalistic content is still one of my main source of information that most of the population use to get informed, so my bet is many people do feel implicated somehow.