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Journalism of Courage
The Trump administration has unfrozen a stalled Biden-era contract with Paragon Solutions, a spyware company founded in Israel, whose products have been allegedly used to facilitate the surveillance of activists and journalists in Europe.
The move will give the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to the company’s powerful hacking software — known as Graphite — which can hack mobile phones and encrypted messaging applications.
The spyware
Graphite is designed to gain remote access to a mobile phone and essentially take control of it. The user of the spyware can not only access the mobile user’s photos, read their messages, and track their whereabouts, but also monitor encrypted messages sent on platforms such as WhatsApp and Signal.
The spyware also enables the phone to be used as a listening device by manipulating its recorder, according to a report by The Guardian.
The company behind Graphite is Paragon Solutions, which was co-founded by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. In late 2024, AE Industrial Partners, a Florida-based investment group, acquired the company for $900 million, according to a report by Bloomberg. AE also owns cyber-intelligence company REDLattice, which has several former CIA officials on its management board.
Allegations of hacking
Paragon Solutions claims it sells its products to only governments and law enforcement agencies for the purposes of fighting serious crime. The company also claims that it has a zero-tolerance policy for governments that use the technology to target members of civil society.
However, Paragon Solutions was forced to terminate its contract with Italy this February after Meta Platforms, which owns WhatsApp, said that the company’s spyware was used to target 90 people in two dozen countries, including journalists and activists, in 2024. The individuals who were targeted included journalists and several pro-immigration activists.
The stalled contract
Under the Biden administration, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, entered into a $2 million contract with Paragon Solutions for one year in September 2024.
However, the contract was put on hold the next month due to concerns that it potentially violated the administration’s March 2023 executive order, which had limited the US procurement of spyware. The pause mandated a robust review of Paragon Solutions and Graphite to address concerns regarding security and improper use as well.
The Trump administration has now done away with this pause, helping ICE gain access to Graphite.
Experts worry that the spying tool would help ICE expand its crackdown on undocumented immigrants. The agency has repeatedly been accused by civil and human rights groups of violating people’s due process rights.
Nadine Farid Johnson, policy director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, told The Guardian, “Spyware like Paragon’s Graphite poses a profound threat to free speech and privacy… The quiet lifting of the stop work order also raises the troubling prospect that parts of the executive branch are acting without adherence to the government’s own vetting requirements.”
