American IT Lawyers Debunk Allegations against Morocco

Two American lawyers specialized in IT law said, on Saturday, that Pegasus claims against Morocco by Citizen Lab, Amnesty International, and Forbidden Stories are “pseudo-evidence” and legally “inadmissible”.
The remarks came during hearings, organized by the National Commission for Personal Data Protection (CNDP) on Feb. 24-25 in Tangier, for national and international technical experts willing to present and share their analyses and conclusions, based on rational methodologies and proven facts.
American lawyer at the New York bar Tor Ekeland noted that the report merely cites “traces” of an alleged Pegasus use, without giving any explanation as to what these traces mean. “In my opinion, what Amnesty and Citizen Lab are doing is very dangerous, because they are promoting a kind of junk science and making accusations that they can’t back up,” he added.
For his part, Michael Hassard, an NYC-based IT lawyer, explained that the scientific evidence submitted for analysis could often be subject to “confirmation bias”. He further emphasized that “scientific methods of processing evidence in cybersecurity and computer science are relatively new and not foolproof.”
The two lawyers stressed the importance of establishing ethical standards when it comes to methodologies in such cases.