The Wire along with sixteen other International publications, being media partners to an investigation conducted by Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International published a report on a leaked list of the world’s more than 50,000 phone numbers of journalists, political leaders, human rights defenders, etc., identified to be targeted surveillance using the NSO group’s Israeli Pegasus spyware. According to the NSO group, the spyware is only sold to the government who uses it to target criminals and terrorists.

In recent years, the UN experts had repeatedly warned that the surveillance technology is becoming a menace to the human rights. They had urged the International community to impose a global moratorium on the sale and transfer of spyware technology until the government develops a potent regulatory framework to restrict and alleviate the negative impacts of surveillance technology by redressing it. Now it has to be the ultimate goal when the safety of the nation should be taken as a matter of deep concern.