Welcome back to the podcast, brib, swindle, or steel.

I'm Alexandra Rogge.

Today's podcast is the second in a two-part discussion about the compliance and the human rights challenges surrounding spyware.

That is software that enables the user, the government customer,

to covertly access the phones and in some cases computers of its own citizens.

Last week, Hime Gelfand, the Vice President of Compliance with NSO Group,

joined the podcast to discuss his company's compliance program,

the due diligence they undertake, and the technological safeguards,

that's a kill switch to shut down the system. Today I'm speaking with Kedija Ismailova.

Kedija has been on the podcast before. She's a tenacious investigative journalist who focuses

on corruption in her home country, Azerbaijan. Her refusal to back down when faced with threats and attempted

blackmail ended in her ultimate imprisonment on trumped-up charges, and upon her release, she promptly

resumed her work. It is alleged by Amnesty International's tech lab that spyware was installed on

Kaddegia's phone. For that reason, I wanted to give Kedija specifically the opportunity to discuss this

technology and whether it can be managed safely.

Unfortunately, we had a terrible link to record this podcast.

So in the end, we had to record the questions and answers separately and knit them back together.

I apologize,

but hope that you will be patient and bear with us so that you can hear what Kedija has to say.

Thank you. Kedija, thank you for joining me. Thank you. Thank you for invitation.

I'd like to start if we could with the granular issue of what you know about what happened with your phone and then step back and look at the big picture of what the existence of this technology means for journalists and for civil society.

What you know is actually an excellent question because unless your phone is examined

...