DHS Must Come Clean on Contract with Spyware Purveyor Paragon Solutions

The Center for Democracy & Technology has joined 35 other civil society organizations and a number of spyware experts in a letter that calls on the Department of Homeland Security to release details about its $2 million contract with Paragon Solutions (US) Inc. 

Paragon is a spyware vendor headquartered in Israel whose flagship product, Graphite, is used to extract communications content. The contract between DHS and Paragon is reportedly under review for compliance with President Biden’s ground-breaking executive order on spyware. That order bars agencies of the U.S. government from making operational use of commercial spyware that, among other things, poses a risk of improper use by a foreign government or person, including use to collect information on activists, journalists, dissidents, political figures and marginalized communities in order to intimidate them, curb dissent, or otherwise limit their free expression. Among other things, we asked DHS to describe the steps it had taken to ensure that entering into this contract was consistent with the spyware EO and to provide records about its procurement of spyware. 

Full letter here.