Why would a US court have any jurisdiction over a foreign Israeli spyware vendor that has already been blacklisted by the US government?
And why would Israel send their spyware source code to WhatsApp even if they lose the case?
If they didn't respond, they'd lose by default, and the court could order any assets the US can get their hands on seized. If they're getting paid in NIS by countries outside of Israel, the currency conversion happens with dollars as the intermediary. There's the US's window.
On the other hand, if they were paid in US dollars, but in cash, that wouldn't establish jurisdiction, nor could it be seized, if the transfer happened outside US territory?
These are just pieces of paper, they don't provide any kind of jurisdiction. The American banking system may refuse to serve me perhaps, but it's not the dollars that give the American government any control. Hell, several countries outdid e the USA use American dollars as an official currency, but that doesn't make them vassal states to the USA.
If you got a pile of dollars in the US, you did business in the US and if that business has any tenuous connection to what the courts are after you about, we have jurisdiction.
If you don't like it you have to run to China, Russia, Iran, etc.
I let you have one guess which entity gives those pieces of paper their value.
The USA can print and lend dollars to control the value of the currency on the global marketplace. When trading outside of the USA, people give the bills their value.
You can substitute a suitcase with a million dollars for a suitcase full of gold or a suitcase full of diamonds, or a suitcase full of Pokémon cards. Outside the official banking system, the value of paper money is whatever the people trading perceive it to be. In some cases, that value can be larger than a million dollars (i.e. in countries where their own currency is in a free-fall, where the government is trying to limit the supply of foreign currency, but people want to exchange their local currency for something more stable; people in Argentina, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, and Turkey might want to do that).
If, for whatever reason, Russia pays for North Korean drones to murder Ukrainians, there's absolutely nothing the American government can do about that.
Ironically paper money is the way to "escape" sanctions, because anyone around the world knows that that 100 dollar bill can be exchanged for goods and services. And it doesn't even have to involve a bank, just another person who recognizes the value of that paper, in a chain of transactions. Depending on the hassle you may need to pay more..
To seize somebody's gold you'd have to go physically get it. To seize their dollars you just go say hi to their bank. Unless you're an "enemy combatant" the US isn't going to go do extraordinary rendition on your assets, so you're pile of foreign gold is safe.
The reach of the American legal system is long, you don't have to do much as a foreign entity to put you under our umbrella.
Are you a French wine maker that wants to sell to America? You better be using USD with a friendly bank to pay for things like import fees/tariffs (or the American company you work with better do that). Sure you can deal only in Euros if you want, but at some point there's a conversion to USD when you sell to Americans. Middle Eastern Oil Company? Same thing. German Car company? Same. Brazilian fruit farm? Same. How about importing your Coca Cola products, and iPhones? Buying ads from Google? USD and a US-friendly banks are everywhere in the global economy because the US is such a big market.
Those banks will be banned from US commerce if they work with the NSO and don't hand over the NSO's money, and will lose tons of "innocent" business (like those nice wine makers in France). Their governments probably have treaties with the US, so they don't have a legal choice anyways. The US influence is viral.
On the other hand, if someone used a local bank in their country to transact with an entity in China, and China demanded their assets in that bank be seized because they defamed a revolutionary hero [1], I would expect that country to block that seizure, regardless of how the bank itself might feel. I.e. they would demand any seizures comply with their local laws, similar to how extraditions (are supposed to) work, and not let other countries essentially steal from their citizens. Or looking at it a bit different, a bank can't take from its customers on behalf of a foreign country, since locals laws, unless they explicitly allow that taking, would consider it theft.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-lawmaking-idUSKBN1H...
Edit as reply because "I'm posting too fast" (thanks HN for not telling when I can post again by the way):
> Discussion about the US dollar misses the point. They do it because they can
I'd argue it doesn't miss the point, but rather, hides the true cause - that as you say, they do it because they can (as quickly becomes obvious when no other currency has this viral jurisdictional effect).
But I'm curious if anyone has ever tried suing their bank, in a non-US court, alleging that their seizure of their assets was illegal under local law. I can understand a bank rolling over for the US government, but it would be interesting to see if and how their legal system would justify it. Especially for something that is not a crime in their country.
They do it because they can, basically we all live under the influence of the US empire, they can put pressure on most banks of they really want to, and if they really want to, details like which currency was used will not stop them.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/28/hong-kong-carr...
> If they got paid in Turkish liras, but through a bank under US influence, those liras would also get seized, wouldn't they?
Yea except no one wants Liras. They want USD (and sometimes Euros). So whoever accepts those liras will want USD, and they’ll transfer them to the USD-backed banking system, and back to the original points. Because again, how do you have access to high-volume USD/lira forex markets without using a US-blessed banking system.
The reality is that international finance largely runs on USD, and orbits US banks. One of the main international influence efforts the Us considers is a stable currency. So much so that other nations use USD as a formal currency. The US exerts significant political pressure and political capital to ensure that everyone needs USD in their economy. America literally made international treaties with every oil producing nations requiring oil to be sold in USD just to ensure that every country needed to inject USD into their economy.
> I can understand a bank rolling over for the US government, but it would be interesting to see if and how their legal system would justify it.
They’d justify it by having laws that say they’d reciprocate and recognize US crimes. It’s what the international community does.
Even for physical cash, they might claim jurisdiction. Dollars are sometimes best understood as a particularly degenerate form of US government bonds.
I for one would trend toward banning cryptocurrency even if it weren't a complete waste of energy.
Never thought about it that way, well said.
The harm is happening in the US, to WhatsApp's customers (among other places). The US court has jurisdiction.
Whether any remedy could be applied is independent of the court's findings.
Israel able to get away with being a frenemy to the West but there are limits.
Crazy stories happened here in France.
USA basically sent Alstom, a huge French company, to bankruptcy, then bought it for pennies, and then they tried to destroy Airbus. In both cases they used this right they gave themselves they call extraterritoriality.
The stories I mentioned are documented in this reportage: https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/093798-000-A/la-bataille-d-air...
The video used to be available on YouTube at the following url : https://youtu.be/Sa22eu1FWyo but it seems it was set to private. Annoying revelations?
So if a US judge signs and an order and sends the order to an Israeli judge, the israeli judge enforces it (and vice versa).
They can of course choose to ignore the lawsuit, if their principals want to never enter the US again, which is frankly recommended for all their employees given their operations are prima facie criminal in nature.