Joel Schectman and Joseph Menn

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – A group of U.S. legislators is asking for sanctions against NSO Group in Israel and three other surveillance companies that they claim helped authoritarian governments violate human rights.

They also requested sanctions for top NSO executives, DarkMatter cybersecurity company in the United Arab Emirates, Trovicor online bulk surveillance company Nexa Technologies, Trovicor European cyber security companies.

Global Magnitsky sanctions were requested by the lawmakers, which are used to punish those accused of supporting human rights violations through bank account freezing and travel bans to the United States.

DarkMatter was unable to be reached for comment. Three other companies didn’t immediately respond to our requests for comment.

Ron Wyden (Senate Finance Committee Chairman), Adam Schiff (House Intelligence Committee Chair) and 16 Democratic legislators signed the letter. They cite a Reuters article from this month that shows NSO spyware had been used in Uganda against State Department employees.

They stated that the U.S. bank and investments are crucial to the success of the spying industry. They wrote that the U.S. should use financial sanctions to effectively punish the suspects and give a signal to the surveillance industry.

According to the letter, the companies were responsible for the “disappearances, torture and deaths of journalists and human rights activists.” Washington has been increasing concerned about surveillance firms due to a slew of media reports linking them with human rights violations.

Wyden said to Reuters, “These surveillance mercenaries were sold to authoritarian governments with long records on human rights abuses and giving huge spying powers to tyrants.” They used surveillance instruments to imprison, torture, and kill journalists as well as human rights activists. Biden has an opportunity to shut off American dollar flow and make sure they go out of business.

The Commerce Department placed NSO on its so-called Entity list in November. This bans U.S. vendors from selling any software or services to Israeli spyware makers without obtaining special authorization.

There are many legal hurdles that could also pose a threat to the industry. DarkMatter was sued by a prominent Saudi activist, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Non-Profit Electronic Frontier Foundation. The group claimed she was hacked to her mobile phone.

NSO Group (NASDAQ: Apple) was sued in November by Apple, claiming that NSO Group had violated U.S. laws through unauthorized access to the iPhone’s software.

The letter cites a 2019 Reuters investigation that also revealed a dark matter hacking unit called Project Raven (NASDAQ;) which was used to spy on the UAE’s enemies. The Justice Department reached a September settlement where three former U.S. intelligence officers admitted to hacking violations.