spying

An Israeli soldier photographs a Palestinian man using an AI facial recognition tool during a raid in Wadi Qutyna, Al-Mughayer, occupied West Bank, January 17, 2025. (Avishay Mohar/Activestills)

Israel developing ChatGPT-like tool that weaponizes surveillance of Palestinians

The Israeli army is building an AI language model using millions of intercepted conversations between Palestinians, which could accelerate the process of incrimination and arrest, a joint investigation reveals.

By Yuval Abraham March 6, 2025

An Israeli military watchtower and cameras over Road 60, occupied West Bank, Jan. 30, 2006. (Activestills)

The watchful eye of Israel’s surveillance empire

Israeli cyber companies are at the forefront of a booming facial recognition market, threatening basic freedoms in Israel-Palestine and beyond.

By Jonathan Hempel May 3, 2022

The right-wing organization, ‘Ad Kan,’ sent its employees to infiltrate human rights organizations and record their every move with hidden cameras. The man on the left is the ‘infiltrator,’ Ezra Nawi is on the right. (Screenshot)

Israel’s volunteer thought-police

Right-wing activists have been infiltrating human rights and anti-occupation organizations. The spies did do serious damage, but to a much bigger target than they intended: Israeli society. Two weeks ago I wrote about a right-wing group trying to recruit people to a “top secret” mission: spying on left-wing organizations in Israel. The outfit was largely a…

By Dahlia Scheindlin January 15, 2016

Latest

Illustrative photo by Shutterstock.com

The real reason Jewish-American spy Jonathan Pollard is back in the news

Pollard is scheduled to be released in November. The issue for Israel is whether the U.S. will allow the Jewish American to move to Israel, where Washington fears he would be given a hero’s welcome. The 30-year saga of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard is once again gaining serious attention in the Israeli, American and international news…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man July 25, 2015

Illustrative photo of digital surveillance. (Shutterstock.com)

Against spy revelations, Israel doth protest too much

The nation’s establishment has called the whistle-blowers of Unit 8200 every bad name, but it has no answer to their charge that information deliberately gathered on innocent Palestinians is used to blackmail them into collaborating. The 43 refuseniks in Unit 8200, Israel’s legendary high-tech snoops, are this week’s Gideon Levys, this week’s Haneen Zoabis –…

By Larry Derfner September 16, 2014

Edward Snowden in Moscow, October 9, 2013. (Screenshot: WikiLeaks)

+972’s Person of the Year: Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden’s disclosures exposing the extent of NSA surveillance taught us more about our relationship with government than any other exposure or event. In fact, we learned about relationships we didn’t even know we had. But the Snowden leaks didn’t just change what we know; they sparked a discussion that could very well change the…

By +972 Magazine December 28, 2013

U.S. President Barack Obama laughing aboard Air Force One (Pete Souza/White House Photo, cropped)

NSA spying program: Obama’s fall from grace

The fear and paranoia into which PRISM was born, if continued, will eventually lead the United States to isolation, leaving it stranded within the limits of its power. By Hakim Bishara If the NSA were to hack into my email account, as they evidently do, they would find the following message I sent to a…

By +972 Magazine June 25, 2013