involved in selling equipment for intercepting mobile phone calls to the Vietnamese security forces.
The report published by the Montagnard Foundation Incorporated (MFI) and BosNewsLife News Agency Wednesday, August 23, said Silver Bullet, and a US company, Verint Systems (a subsidiary of Comverse Technology), sold the equipment to the Vietnamese military and related intelligence services.
UK-based Jane’s Defence Weekly said earlier that a subsidiary of Israel Aircraft Industries acted as intermediary in some of the sales. Human rights groups like MFI fear the equipment will be used by Communist authorities to monitor especially Montagnard Degar Christians in the Central Highlands and political dissidents, who activists say, may end up in prison where they face "torture" and "sometimes death."
"We are appalled to learn that our phone calls with Vietnamese cyber-dissidents have been monitored with equipment provided by European and US companies," Paris-based RWB added in a statement obtained by BosNewsLife.
YAHOO CASE
"Coming a year after it emerged that [internet giant] Yahoo! cooperated with the Chinese police [which led to the arrest of a journalist] this new case reinforces our conviction that telecommunications companies must be forced to respect certain rules of ethical conduct," the group said. "In particular, they should be banned from selling surveillance equipment to repressive governments," RWB added.
Earlier sales were revealed by Robert Karniol in an article headlined “Vietnamese army enhances mobile phone monitoring” in the 31 October 2005 issue of Jane’s Defence Weekly (JDW).
He said the London-based Silver Bullet had recently sold two ‘P-GSM’ stations (portable mobile phone listening devices) to Vietnam for $250,000 each. Elta (a subsidiary of Israel Aircraft Industries) and Aikap Group, another Israeli company, acted as intermediaries in this transaction.
SILVER BULLET
The JDW article said the equipment sold by Silver Bullet complemented similar equipment provided to Vietnam in 2002 by the US-based company Verint Systems. Verint is a subsidiary of Comserve Technology, a telecommunications company quoted on the Nasdaq exchange whose former boss, Kobi Alexander, is reportedly wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for securities fraud and is a fugitive from justice.
Reporters Without Borders said it tried to contact Silver Bullet and Verint Systems Wednesday, August 23, but nobody in either company was available to comment on the JDW article.
The organization said it found information about the P-GSM interception system on the Silver Bullet website yesterday. The site was down Thursday, August 24, BosNewsLife confirmed. RWB defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom throughout the world. (With reports from Vietnam and BosNewsLife Research).
