Backroom Deals Of The Surveillance Industry

For over four months, Al Jazeera's undercover reporter posed as a buyer of surveillance systems. The resulting investigation uncovered that multiple surveillance companies would't mind selling their spyware to countries subject to international sanctions, such as Iran, or countries know for human rights violations, such as South Sudan. Actually, they would go so far as to find ways to cover up the proposed transactions. In the hands of the oppressive governments, the spyware could be used to surveil citizens, crush political dissidents or crack down on protest. But the companies don't seem to care.

One company would go even further - they would sell the equipment without knowing who the client is. This means that the powerful IMSI-catcher, a portable device that intercepts the traffic of nearby mobile devices, could be bought, for example, by a criminal group, a terrorist organisation, or a private company wanting to eavesdrop on competition.

"We don't know who is the end user. And we don't care," the company's co-founder says in the video.

The 47-minute documentary is a really good piece of investigative reporting. The exposed trade dealings are not only illegal, but also amoral. Al Jazeera shows how the focus on financial gains strips the companies of ethics, putting millions of citizens and their privacy rights at risk. It seems that spy manufacturers, just as the arms industry before, prefer to turn a blind eye to whether their products might fall into the wrong hands, as long as they seal the deal.

"For many companies in the hi-tech arena, they will sell their surveillance wares to anybody who wants to buy them. It doesn't matter what the morality or ethics are. I have a service, I have surveillance, I can sell it to the highest bidder," sums up Thomas Drake, a former NSA senior executive in the video.