Richard Silverstein

1 week ago | richardsilverstein.com | Richard Silverstein

A California jury issued a $168-million judgement against the Israeli spyware company, NSO Group, in a case brought by Meta, the owner of Whatsapp. Nearly a decade ago, forensic investigators discovered that NSO’s hacking tool, Pegasus, was used by an unnamed client (likely Saudi Arabia) to hack the Whatsapp accounts of 1,400 customers. Though we don’t know which specific individuals were targeted, they were considered opponents of the ruling regime.

1 week ago | richardsilverstein.com | Richard Silverstein

At the 1942 Wansee Conference, Hitler devised his Final Solution to the Jewish Problem (in German: Endlösung der Judenfrage): extermination of the Jewish race (as the Nazis used the term). It resulted in the mass murder of 6-million of Europe’s 9.5-million Jews. The masterminds of this atrocity were tried in the Nuremberg Tribunal, many of them executed for their crimes.

1 week ago | middleeasteye.net | Pauline Ertel |Richard Silverstein

US President Trump has already caused an "unprecedented" human rights crisis in his first 100 days in office, human rights experts have said. Human Rights Watch's new report, titled "100 Human Rights Harms in 100 Days, The Trump Administration’s Assault on Rights in the United States and Abroad", catalogues what they term as rights abuses under the first three months of the Trump administration.

2 weeks ago | middleeasteye.net | Richard Silverstein

In two weeks' time, US President Donald Trump will embark on his first working foreign trip to three Arab Gulf countries, and all of them have now directly partnered with the Trump Organization on real estate deals. On Wednesday, Reuters was first to report that Qatari Diar, a government-administered real estate firm in Doha, is partnering with the Trump Organization to build the Trump International Golf Club and villas in Simaisma, a resort town some 30 kilometres north of the Qatari capital.

2 weeks ago | theburnerseattle.com | Richard Silverstein

This story was originally published at RichardSilverstein.com. Seattle Public Library (SPL) director, Tom Fay, issued a staff directive which told employees, in effect, to permit ICE to arrest patrons within its public facilities. The guidance is troubling (background information about ICE operations in libraries). For example, it restricts employees from exercising their own First Amendment rights in such circumstances.