Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has called for the FBI to provide public disclosures about the extent of its hacking of the phones of U.S. citizens and the criteria that the bureau uses in determining when to put specialized software to use to manipulate a person’s phone.
In a Dec. 20 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, the senator expressed a number of concerns related to the agency’s acquisition of—and later, its purported decision to not use—highly specialized Pegasus software developed by the Israeli firm NSO Group for the purpose of hacking phones. The tool can be used to infiltrate a person’s phone and extract its contents without the owner’s knowledge.
