“Even if you are the minority of one, the truth is the truth.” Mahatma Gandhi (Indian, non-violent, anti-colonist, lawyer 1869-1948)

This book is not about politics or fake news. It is a well-researched story about the deceptive and largely unchecked intrusion into your everyday life through your technical devices. Nothing wrong with the growth of technology, but it sure is a cautionary tale of checking the devices we use daily. Pegasus is a mystical horse in Greek mythology. In this case, this book is not about a mystical horse, nor a magical one, but a clear objective to break into your device and steal your personal data. It does not matter if these devices are cell phones or any other means of communication, it is essential that we are aware of and concerned about this theft. And this is worldwide!

PEGASUS, the subtitle is ‘How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy.’ The authors are Laurent Richard, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and Sandrine Rigaud, an investigative journalist. The cautionary story is a full-never-before-told story of the most sophisticated and invasive surveillance weapon ever used, which is upending democracy around the world. This Pegasus surveillance system is marketed by its creators as a lifesaving protective measure against terrorism. It can infect a private cell phone without alerting the owner-then tracking their daily movements in real-time, gaining control of the device’s microphone and camera at will, capturing all videos, photos, emails, texts, and passwords, whether encrypted or not. But now, instead of just targeting terrorists, Pegasus is being used to target dissidents, reporters, and others whom autocrats and dictators want to spy on and, in some cases, to silence. 

As insidious as it is invasive, Pegasus could be on your phone, and you’d have no way of knowing it. This book, globally researched by two journalists, masterfully told, tells the story of how a single spectacular leak of data exposed the astounding scale and chilling new ways in which governments around the world-authoritarian and liberal alike- are eroding key pillars of democracy: privacy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech. It is a story that implicates or endangers many if not millions of people around the world for this thieving practice is largely unchecked. The tremors of this story can affect everyone with a tech device and will be crucial in the future. The world of technology is transitioning into a fast-moving new-age one; it is a hire-wire act for unregulated tools and the protection of its users. It is a worldwide Orwellian nightmare because your every thought, every footstep, and every word are recorded and tracked from afar.

Here are some excerpts: Backlash against the Pegasus Project itself came from the expected parties, with Shalev in the lead. Shalev Hulio, CEO of Israeli Spyware was conciliatory at times. “The company cares about journalists and activists and civil society in general,” he said in interviews. “If somebody says, I found a better way to get criminals, get terrorists, get information about a pedophile, I will shut down Pegasus completely.” He hammered on his talking points: NSO is a software company and doesn’t operate Pegasus; the company sells to government entities only; it has no real-time visibility into its clients’ targets; the Israeli government regulates all licenses of the Pegasus system. But as media outlets all over the world ran with and followed up on the stories our consortium published over the next four days, and it was clear that the investigation was going to have a real impact, the response from NSO grew angrier and more conspiratorial. A statement from NSO said the following: “Enough is enough. Considering the recently planned and well-orchestrated media campaign led by Forbidden Stories and pushed by special interest groups, and due to the complete disregard of the facts. NSO is announcing it will no longer be responding to media inquiries on this matter.” Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International were either leaders or tools of, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic conspiracy, was suggested. Neither is true!

Deception and lies are part of the game that PEGASUS has been playing. It has destroyed many lives. This book is the behind-the-scenes story of the Pegasus Project, the investigation into the meaning of leaked data, as told by Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud of Forbidden Stories, the two journalists who got access to the list of fifty thousand phones. With this list in hand, they gathered and coordinated an international collaboration of more than eighty investigative journalists from seventeen media organizations across four continents, eleven time zones, and about eight separate languages. Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based journalism nonprofit organization, founded by Laurent Richard, is devoted to continuing the work of assassinated reporters. Sandrine Rigaud is a French investigative journalist and the coordinator of Pegasus Project and is part of the team Forbidden Stories. It is an extraordinary story, that alerts everyone to guard their freedom and the way they communicate.    

“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” Albert Einstein (German Physicist – 1879-1955