Hacking Team : the company that spied on you during the Tunisian revolution!

Classified by Reporters Without Borders among “The Enemies of Internet,” Hacking Team is an Italian company specializing in software, surveillance systems, and decryption. On 6 July 2015, company servers were hacked, rendering public 400 Gb of information. One item to have emerged is a table showing the company’s past and current clients where we find listed for Tunisia the ATI, Tunisian Internet Agency. According to the leaked information, ATI benefited from Hacking Team services via a contract for a “demo” system in 2011—in the midst of the country’s revolution.

ATT : l’An Un d’une surveillance illégale

Cette semaine l’Agence Tunisienne des Télécommunications célèbre le premier anniversaire de sa création. Le 12 novembre 2013, les Tunisiens découvraient dans le journal officiel le décret n° 2013-4506 du 6 novembre1 portant sur l’établissement d’un nouvel organe dont la mission principale est d’ « assurer l’appui technique aux investigations judiciaires dans les crimes des systèmes d’information et de la communication ».

American IRI and NDI Observation Delegations for Tunisia’s 2014 Elections

In Tunisia, public opinion has often questioned the authenticity of foreign initiatives to facilitate the country’s transition to democracy, based largely on skepticism of, for instance, the US’ silence/complicity in (a lack of truly democratic) political processes that kept Ben Ali in power for over two decades. Shortly after the President’s fled the country in January 2011, questions posed during a press conference at the US Embassy in Tunis on 21 February expressed as much; one Tunisian journalist explicitly asked, «How can we trust you?»

Terrorisme et cybersurveillance : l’ATT serait-elle entrain d’opérer en toute illégalité ?

Via un cadre légal équivoque, des dispositions de lutte contre la “propagande terroriste” sur internet ont été mises en œuvre par le pouvoir exécutif. En témoigne le récent communiqué du ministère de l’Intérieur qui annonce l’arrestation de quatre filles et deux garçons accusés d’administrer des pages Facebook faisant l’apologie du terrorisme. Cette opération a été supervisée par « l’Unité nationale d’investigation sur les crimes terroristes relevant des services spécialisés de la direction générale de la sureté nationale », précise le communiqué du ministère.

ATT and New Cybercrime Draft Law are But Snags in Tunisia’s Threadbare Legislative System

It is the transgression from the notion of censorship as a right and protection against physical and verbal violence that Tunisia’s legislative body must now recalibrate in order to advance in this period designated as democratic transition. That Tunisian law adheres to international standards is not merely insufficient, but ill-fitted, unconstructive, and myopic if compliance with international conventions translates into the copy-paste importation of text and a lack of contextualization and comparative analysis.

In the Name of National Security, ATT Poses Threat to Freedom of Expression, Separation of State Powers

Two recent articles from The International Business Times (New York) and Index on Censorship (a London-based organization that works to «protect freedom of expression around the world») resonate with the skepticism in publications from Tunisian media outlets and pose questions pertinent to national controversies that embody the challenges of post-revolution social and political transition.