Complaints that the surveillance state has become too large and unwieldy are common in the United States. Thanks to exports from the U.S. and some of its allies, Colombian citizens are feeling the same way, but with deadlier consequences.
A handful of companies based in Italy, Israel, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the U.S. have sold surveillance technology to authorities in Colombia, according to research published this month by the UK-based Privacy International. The technology enables Colombian law enforcement and intelligence agencies to engage in surveillance activities similar to those conducted by the National Security Agency in the U.S.
The technology allows Colombian police to do things such as hack electronic devices unbeknownst to users, install offensive malware that allow for remote access and control, and harvest telephone data en masse. Like the U.S., Colombian law doesn’t necessarily allow for such surveillance to take place. “This type of mass, automated surveillance is not explicitly authorized under Colombian law,” the researchers note.
In some cases, the public has yet to understand what some of the technology does. One tool sold mirrors the “Stingray” program used in the U.S, a tool contracted to local law enforcement by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It works by indiscriminately capturing all telephone data, including conversations, of all the people in a given area. It is used when law enforcement is trying to find a specific target, but allows them to spy on hundreds or even thousands of people in the process.
The government’s disregard for the law doesn’t end with respect to surveillance, the researchers note. “Accounts of the illegal interception of private communications pervade accounts of extrajudicial disappearances and killings,” they state.
In 2007, 11 police generals were dismissed “following revelations that the agency had tapped the phone lines of influential opposition politicians, journalists, lawyers and activists.” In some cases, government agencies spy on each other; it was alleged in 2014 that the Colombian Army was spying on a government negotiating team.
Colombia has been filled with strife for decades. Civil conflict has resulted in more than 200,000 dead and a litany of human rights violations.
Without the surveillance technology imports from Western countries, the researchers emphasize, none of that would be possible, noting, “With a few exceptions, Colombian companies do not produce the equipment necessary for network surveillance domestically.”
Companies that have sold the technology to Colombia include the U.S.-based Pen-Link. Two more, Verint Systems and NICE Systems, have offices in the U.S. and Israel. Two additional companies are headquartered in the UK, while Italy and New Zealand each have one exporter.
“No more than a handful of individuals within the industry appear to have adequately considered the human rights impacts of their businesses,” the authors say. They also write that governments should take “respect for international human rights standards” into account in the oversight of surveillance technology exports.
In the meantime, they conclude, “the specter of illegal interception of communications and the abuses of surveillance laws still hangs over the Colombian state.”
This article appears in the Sept. 8 edition of the Washington Examiner magazine.
