Israel’s attorney general orders probe of NSO spyware claims

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s attorney general says he is launching an investigation into the police’s use of phone surveillance technology following reports that investigators tracked targets without proper authorization. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s four-page letter Thursday said he had not yet found evidence substantiating the reports in the Israeli business daily Calcalist, which claimed that police had targeted leaders of a protest movement against then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, among others. But Mandelblit said the cases mentioned in the report “raise a very troubling picture.” He says he will establish a investigatory committee to probe the matter.