“I think absurd is exactly the right word,” said Saudi Prince Faisal Read the rest

In Israel on Thursday, a court ordered closed-door hearings in the legal bid by Amnesty International to stop the global export of NSO Group surveillance software, which Amnesty and other human rights groups say is sold to autocratic regimes around the world to spy on journalists and dissidents, and target them more efficiently for imprisonment and assassination.

We've written a lot previously about NSO Group here on Boing Boing.. Read the rest

Uber CEO on Saudi Arabia's killing of Jamal Khashoggi: "It's a serious mistake. We've made mistakes too, right, with self-driving ... So I think that people make mistakes. It doesn't mean that they can never be forgiven" pic.twitter.com/EvinRrh3SE

— BNO News (@BNONews) November 11, 2019

Uber is significantly backed by Saudi investments and the country's sovereign wealth fund controls a seat on its board. In this video, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is asked by Axios's Dan Primack about the Saudi regime's murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S.-based journalist and dissident.

"It's a serious mistake," Khosrowshahi said. "We've made mistakes too, right? With self-driving, and we're recovering from that mistake ... So I think that people make mistakes. It doesn't mean that they can never be forgiven. I think they've taking is seriously."

Primack challenged his comparison of a political assassination, as described in a CIA report, to the presumptively accidental killing of a pedestrian by a self-driving car.

"I didn't read that part of the CIA report," Khosrowshahi said. "You're obviously deeper in it."

Khosrowshahi, however, is now very deep in something else.

Khosrowshahi later backtracked, telling Axios after the interview had ended that he had misspoken. “I said something in the moment that I do not believe,” said the CEO in a statement. “When it comes to Jamal Khashoggi, his murder was reprehensible and should not be forgotten or excused.”

Twitter has some very serious security explaining to do. Read the rest

Washington Post columnist and Saudi Arabian dissident Jamal Khashoggi was murdered and dismembered by agents of the Saudi royal family at the country's embassy in Turkey. This video reconstruction by Al Jazeera shows the last minutes of his life and the first minutes of his death. It's based on transcripts and timestamps from surveillance recordings, as released by the Turkish government and published by Daily Sabah.

The video appears to skip over stuff, though, implying that he was suffocated with a hood when there is apparently some debate over whether he was dead or merely drugged before the dismembering began. More details in print.

Audio recordings of the horrifying conversations between the 15-man Saudi hit squad and their victim, journalist Jamal Khashoggi, has been revealed to the public for the first time by the Turkish daily Sabah.....

Mutreb: Is it possible to put the body in a bag?

Al-Tubaigy: No. Too heavy, very tall too. Actually, I've always worked on cadavers. I know how to cut very well. I have never worked on a warm body though, but I'll also manage that easily. I normally put on my earphones and listen to music when I cut cadavers. In the meantime, I sip on my coffee and smoke. After I dismember it, you will wrap the parts into plastic bags, put them in suitcases and take them out (of the building).

The shame just keeps on coming, America. Read the rest

The CIA and security services of one or more foreign governments have recently warned at least three friends and colleagues of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi that their pro-democracy work “has made them and their families the targets of potential retaliation from Saudi Arabia,” reports TIME. Read the rest

Canada's Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau -- a man who is willing to say the most progressive, laudable things imaginable, provided he doesn't have to do anything -- has steadfastly refused to cancel Canada's planned $15 billion sale of antipersonnel weapons to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, despite the incipient genocide in Yemen and the Kingdom's practice of dismembering critical journalists. Read the rest

CIA director Gina Haspel listened to audio of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi's torture and execution in Istanbul's Saudi embassy, reports the BBC.

They say Ms Haspel was allowed to listen to the audio during a visit to Turkey earlier this week....Soon after the murder on 2 October, Turkish media quoted officials as saying they had audio recordings of Khashoggi's interrogation and death, but gave no details about the contents or how the audio had been obtained

Gina Haspel somehow getting to listen in on Khashoggi being tortured is like when the editor of a travel magazine somehow gets to spend a month in Bali. Read the rest

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo today said the United States will revoke entry visas for the Saudi men accused of torturing and assassinating Washington Post contributing journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Read the rest

Gina Haspel, the director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, is reported to be traveling to Turkey late Monday to assist in “an investigation” over the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Read the rest

The Saudi entourage who went to the embassy in Turkey to cut off journalist Jamal Khashoggi's fingers, inject him with a drug to silence him, and dismember him with a bone saw made four calls that day to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's office, according to Turkish media reports. The Crown Prince denies knowing anything about the gruesome torture/murder of Khashoggi, who was a US resident. Three of Khashoggi’s children are US citizens. Read the rest

One of the most remarkable things about the Saudis' torture and execution of dissident Jamal Khashoggi and their attempted cover-up is the end-to-end full-spectrum incompetence of every aspect of it. They had a body double on hand to be seen on security camera leaving the embassy in Khashoggi's clothes, but he forgot the shoes, thereby making any footage useless.

For weeks, the Saudi government had denied that it killed Khashoggi and said he walked out of the consulate after his Oct. 2 visit. The body double appeared to be an attempt to substantiate that denial, but the cover story fell apart, according to a diplomat familiar with the deliberations, because the video footage clearly reveals the body double’s flaws, mainly that he is wearing different shoes than Khashoggi wore when he entered the consulate.

Note the layers of ineptitude: they apparently held off releasing footage because of the clothing discrepancies, according to Turkish sources, but they would have been caught anyway had they got the shoes right, because the guy doesn't look much like Jamal Khashoggi.

A member of the 15-man team suspected in the death of Jamal Khashoggi dressed up in his clothes and was captured on surveillance cameras around Istanbul on the day the journalist was killed, a senior Turkish official has told CNN. CNN has obtained exclusive law enforcement surveillance footage, part of the Turkish government's investigation, that appears to show the man leaving the Saudi consulate by the back door, wearing Khashoggi's clothes, a fake beard, and glasses.

The Saudi government today says its initial investigation shows that journalist Jamal Khashoggi [photo above] “has died.” Read the rest

Twitter today pulled down a disinfo bot network that was amplifying pro-Saudi talking points about disappeared journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who is presumed to have been tortured and killed on orders of the government of Saudi Arabia. Read the rest

No wonder he was smiling. The United States received $100 million from Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, which coincidentally, so weird!, was the same day Secty. of State Mike Pompeo landed in Riyadh to laugh and smile with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman about missing Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Read the rest

President Donald Trump talked to reporters today about his phone conversation with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz, during which the two despots discussed the disappearance and apparent killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Read the rest