NSO, Paragon, and the Intelligence Shell Game
The recently announced acquisition of an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm, Paragon Solutions, co-founded by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, by the U.S. private equity firm AE Industrial Partners — for as much as $900 million — has resharpened scrutiny of private surveillance firms’ deep entanglement with government agencies. We have discussed these relationships as has the post from @DefiyantlyFree which focuses on people like Dan Shapiro and highlights Israel’s role in the more extensive intelligence network. For those who know the deeper undercurrents that underpin this power structure, the most revealing aspect of the post is not what it says — but what it omits. The glaring omissions of names like Avril Haines, Antony Blinken and other prominent operatives raise instant suspicion. These people are intimately connected with the networks that monitor, regulate and, in many situations, secretly control the intelligence and surveillance machinery.
The narrative is perhaps a tightly controlled limited hangout focused entirely on Shapiro as sacrificial lamb, which is one to distract from those who have much greater power. At the same time, stressing Israel’s role primed the situation to elicit emotional reactions and charges of anti-Semitism, an old stand-by used to marginalize any concerns about intelligence operations and foreign entanglements. This tactic ensures that, instead of asking the right questions (such as those related to who pulls the puppet’s strings behind Paragon and its U.S. government connections, not to mention the intelligence framework that enables it), discussion is funneled instead into politically charged territory, where serious inquiries are discredited soon enough before they gain any traction.
This is precisely why I’m writing this—to get ahead of the inevitable deflections. The moment this gains traction, the narrative will shift, framing any scrutiny as anti-Semitic conspiracy-mongering, when in reality, the core issue isn’t Israel at all. It’s about how intelligence operations are outsourced to foreign firms to sidestep U.S. laws prohibiting domestic spying. The real story isn’t about nationality—it’s about plausible deniability, privatized espionage, and a surveillance apparatus so deeply embedded that it can manipulate governments, not the other way around. The goal is to ensure no one asks the fundamental question: who benefits from this system?
The problem isn’t merely that of Paragon, or Shapiro; it’s of the network above them, the intelligence-adjacent ecosystem that includes WestExec Advisors, the DHS intelligence board and various high-level figures such as Haines, Blinken and John Brennan. If they are absent from the conversation, it’s not that they weren’t part of it — they are being actively shielded. The question is, who is protecting them and why?
Paragon Solutions — an Israeli cyber intelligence company started by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak — has found itself at the intersection of surveillance technology and geopolitical maneuvering, especially concerning the United States. Since launching in 2019, the company has made a concerted effort to enter the U.S. market, winning contracts with federal agencies including the DEA and ICE. For someone like Barak, with long-running ties to Israeli and American intelligence networks, this wasn’t just a business enterprise — it was a shrewd maneuver into the power brackets of digital spying.
Dan Shapiro’s involvement adds another layer to this web. As the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel under the Obama administration, he was immersed in the intricacies of diplomacy, namely the Iran Nuclear Deal. He left government and became a consultant, first advising NSO Group, the infamous developer of the Pegasus spyware, before he became a partner with WestExec Advisors, the consulting operation co-founded by Obama-era big shots including Antony Blinken. Looking back, his alleged concern about the ethical misuse of surveillance technology in his work for NSO is a joke. More likely, he was a major intermediary between the U.S. intelligence community and the Israeli cyber companies, a function that persisted during Paragon’s ascendance.
The timing is crucial. In 2015, when Shapiro was in the White House, it was reported that the Obama administration was spying on Israeli officials to gauge Netanyahu’s response to the Iran Nuclear Deal. The administration did not want Netanyahu to strike Iran preemptively, and as his No. 2, Barak was at the heart of that strategic tension. The notion that Obama would farm out cyber-espionage to Israeli firms — to spy on Israel itself and other international actors — is not merely plausible, it’s highly likely. The U.S. intelligence community excels at compartmentalization, outsourcing surveillance activities to private companies that deliver deniability and results. If Paragon had not been directly involved at that point, the groundwork would have already been laid for such operations.
The question raised by the performance of this machinery is: Was Epstein another instrument of it? It bears repeating: The scenario under which he was made an asset after 2009, used by intelligence networks to hold influential people hostage, is ideally in keeping with established statecraft. Intelligence gathering is not the goal of surveillance—it is leverage. A network linking Barak to Epstein and figures in U.S. intelligence such as Shapiro would not exist in a vacuum. Instead, it would be part of a broader plan for securing strategic dividends, especially related to the Iran Deal. If Clinton and Barak had prevailed in 2016, that deal would be a done deal. Instead, Trump and Netanyahu scrambled the timeline and threw the intelligence apparatus into disarray.
And then there’s Daphne Barak — a name that takes the whole story into an even murkier realm of geopolitical intrigue when linked to this web. Daphne Barak, a journalist with deep intelligence and political connections, spotted in the company of President Trump’s team members, raises questions about her role in these overlapping intelligence and surveillance networks. Now, given that her husband is the same person who wrote a book called The Trump Card — and by the way, the subtitle of the book — which implicitly, directly infers that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is “the Trump card” in the world— you have to ask yourself: What role does Turkey play in this surveillance apparatus, and how does it intersect with Paragon, NSO Group and the broader intelligence wars?
Given Turkey’s deep connections with both Israeli and Western surveillance networks, the Erdoğan connection can’t be dismissed. Turkey has for years played the gray zone of intelligence-sharing, forging relationships between U.S. intelligence, Israeli cyber operations and adversarial state actors. Let’s presume then that Erdoğan is actually at this “Trump card” phase in this scenario, as Daphne Barak’s spouse insinuated. In that calculus, he is a rogue element in a much larger intelligence game, perhaps as a key node in the black market trade in intelligence technology, financial networks and geopolitical influence.
This begs the disturbing question: Are we witnessing the intelligence war, one waged over surveillance tools, espionage, and blackmail operations, going multi-front, and one in which intermixed on the battlefield will be U.S. and Israeli figures, as well as Turkish intelligence operatives representing and brokered by these rival factions?
The real issue isn’t just Paragon or Shapiro—it’s the network above them. The same intelligence-adjacent ecosystem that includes WestExec Advisors, the DHS intelligence board, and high-level figures like Haines, Blinken, and John Brennan is being shielded from scrutiny. At the same time, convenient distractions are planted to divert attention. The fact that Daphne Barak, with direct ties to Turkey and Israeli intelligence elites, is operating within Trump’s sphere raises an even larger question:
Could this be more than a mere tussle for surveillance supremacy? Perhaps we’re witnessing a complex intelligence strategy, where various groups vie for control over the future landscape of espionage, information warfare, and political influence.
PARAGON SOLUTIONS
The story of Paragon Solutions is far more than just a business transaction between an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm and U.S. government agencies like ICE. It is the latest chapter in a long-running geopolitical struggle over control of surveillance technology, deep-state maneuvering, and the power games that play out behind closed doors. This is not just about spyware—it’s about who wields it, against whom, and why.
Paragon Solutions, an Israeli surveillance tech firm co-founded by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, secured a $2 million contract with ICE in September 2024 to provide its Homeland Security Investigations Division with a proprietary spyware solution. Paragon emerged in 2019 and was founded by veterans of Unit 8200, Israel’s elite cyber-intelligence division responsible for some of the world’s most advanced cyber warfare capabilities.
The contract was not competitively bid; instead, it was awarded under FAR 6.302-1, a federal regulation allowing agencies to bypass standard bidding requirements when dealing with technologies considered unique and essential to government operations (wait for it). The specifics of the spyware weren’t disclosed. Still, Paragon’s flagship tool, Graphite, is known to be capable of extracting data from encrypted apps like WhatsApp and Signal, technologies previously believed to be secure from prying eyes.
However, within weeks of the contract being signed, the Biden White House issued a stop-work order on October 8, 2024, citing Executive Order 14093—a directive from March 2023 aimed at restricting the U.S. government’s use of spyware that posed counterintelligence risks or could be exploited by foreign powers. This move was framed as an act of caution, but in reality, it suggests an internal power struggle over who gets to control and profit from these tools, or it was always the plan, that the cartels got a hold of the software.
Paragon, NSO Group, and the Surveillance Proxy War
To understand why Paragon is so critical, one must look at NSO Group, the now-infamous Israeli cyber firm behind Pegasus, another spyware tool that made global headlines for its role in high-profile espionage cases. Pegasus was used by authoritarian regimes, intelligence agencies, and governments worldwide to spy on journalists, dissidents, and even heads of state. It was so powerful that Apple and WhatsApp had to overhaul their security infrastructure to mitigate its capabilities.
At the time, General Michael Flynn was a board member of the NSO Group. This is significant because Flynn, an alleged opponent of Obama’s intelligence community, was fiercely against the Iran Nuclear Deal and had strong ties to Israeli and Gulf state security interests. If NSO were aligned with Flynn’s broader network, it would explain why the U.S. intelligence establishment, under Obama, Avril Haines, and Blinken, may have sought to sideline NSO in favor of a new, more controllable alternative—which is where Paragon Solutions enters the picture.
Michael Flynn, a retired general and former National Security Adviser, finds himself entangled in a web of controversies tied to his covert dealings with Turkish interests during the charged months leading up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. At the center of this narrative is Flynn Intel Group, his consulting firm, which inked a $600,000 contract in August 2016 with Inovo BV, a Dutch company controlled by Kamil Ekim Alptekin. Alptekin, with links to Turkey’s intelligence apparatus, hired Flynn under the guise of business consulting. However, the actual mission was far darker—smearing Fethullah Gülen, a cleric in U.S. exile whom President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused of orchestrating the July 2016 attempted coup. Behind closed doors, Turkey was quietly lobbying for Gülen’s extradition, a move critical to Erdoğan’s grip on power.
Flynn’s actions raise sharp questions about legal and ethical boundaries. Despite clear legal obligations, he failed to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a glaring omission that only came to light after his resignation in March 2017. At that point, Flynn retroactively disclosed that his work might have “principally benefited the Republic of Turkey.” This delayed admission only deepened scrutiny surrounding his opaque role in the labyrinth of international lobbying and intelligence work. More than straightforward lobbying, Flynn’s efforts reveal an intricate interplay of geopolitical espionage and influence campaigns, emerging at the crossroads where national intelligence, cybersecurity enterprises, and covert operations converge.
But Flynn’s ties to Turkey are just one piece of a much larger puzzle that intertwines global espionage and surveillance players. His work coincided with the meteoric rise of Israeli cyber-intelligence firms such as NSO Group and Paragon Solutions, entities shaping the global surveillance ecosystem. Turkey’s intelligence networks, deeply enmeshed across Western and Middle Eastern factions, routinely act as conduits between countries like the U.S., Israel, and rival powers in the region. It’s plausible that Flynn’s influence operations served multiple stakeholders, linking surveillance technologies, cyber-espionage tactics, and Erdoğan’s increasingly aggressive intelligence strategies.
Layered into this narrative are influential figures like Daphne Barak and her husband, who once called Erdoğan “the Trump Card” of geopolitics. Flynn’s work, viewed through this lens, seems less about lobbying and more about playing a role in a sprawling geopolitical chessboard where espionage, blackmail, and technology form critical pieces. What national secrets were traded, what alliances were shaped, and what goals were covertly pursued under “business consulting”? These questions focus on Flynn’s role not just as a controversial political figure, but as an operative navigating the murky waters of global intelligence games under the guise of diplomacy and lobbying.
Ultimately, Flynn’s Turkish dealings weren’t just about Gülen; they were a battle for sway over intelligence, surveillance, and cybersecurity in a shifting global order, under the watchful eyes of the marionette masters.
In turn, NSO became politically toxic after multiple scandals, and in 2021, the U.S. government under Biden banned it. It was accused of selling spyware to authoritarian regimes that misused it. This left a vacuum for a new surveillance player who could continue providing intelligence services while being more palatable to the U.S. government. Paragon was positioned to fill that role.
Ehud Barak’s involvement in Paragon makes this even more complicated. During Obama’s presidency in 2015, it was revealed that the White House had spied on Israeli officials, particularly regarding Netanyahu’s potential response to the Iran Nuclear Deal. Obama’s intelligence community was obsessed with preventing Israel from launching a preemptive strike on Iran, and they feared Netanyahu and his allies would attempt to sabotage the deal behind the scenes. Ehud Barak was Netanyahu’s second-in-command then, but Barak’s loyalty was always closer to Israel’s intelligence establishment than Netanyahu himself.
Barack Hussein Obama, through his intelligence network, used Israeli surveillance firms to spy not only on Israel but on other foreign countries—including America’s allies in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. Suppose the Obama administration could leverage Israeli spyware to monitor Israeli officials. What stopped them from deploying similar tactics against European leaders, U.S. politicians, or their intelligence rivals within the U.S. establishment?
This is where Jeffrey Epstein enters the picture. Epstein, who had deep connections to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence operatives, was likely used as an asset to gather kompromat on influential individuals—a common tactic in intelligence work. If Epstein had access to figures in intelligence, finance, and politics, he was the perfect mechanism to keep specific individuals in line. His connections to Ehud Barak, the Israeli security elite, and even figures within the Clinton and Obama orbit suggest he was part of this broader machinery.
The timing of Epstein’s downfall is another critical clue. His 2009 arrest forced a reconfiguration of his role. By the time Trump became President in 2017, his existence had become a liability to the intelligence networks that had once protected him. If Paragon was being set up as the new NSO, which seems like NSO’s fall was purposeful.
Then there’s WestExec Advisors, the consulting firm co-founded by Antony Blinken. This firm advised Paragon Solutions on entering the U.S. market. WestExec, comprised of former Obama officials like Avril Haines, specializes in strategic consulting for tech and defense firms looking to integrate with government operations.
This raises a critical question: If the Biden administration later blocked the ICE-Paragon contract under Executive Order 14093, why was WestExec previously helping Paragon enter the U.S. market?
This entire conflict over the ICE contract is manufactured theater—an internal struggle between factions of the intelligence community. If Paragon was at risk of being blocked, why did it already have significant lobbying and advisory influence in Washington? The contract itself may have been greenlit under the assumption that no one would notice, and the subsequent “review” by the White House could be a way to manage public optics without disrupting the intelligence apparatus behind it.
Surveillance goes both ways. Blackmail is the most powerful currency. ~Tore Maras
This entire situation is shaping up to be a covert intelligence operation gone wrong, one that connects surveillance technology, the Biden administration, cartel infiltration, and the same network of intelligence operatives that have been pulling strings for decades. Paragon Solutions’ ICE contract is just the latest piece of a much larger puzzle that ties directly back to the same power structure orchestrating global surveillance, political manipulation, and intelligence warfare.
ICE’s contract with Paragon Solutions for its spyware is particularly disturbing, considering that cartels have reportedly gotten access to similar software. This is no coincidence. Every time a powerful surveillance tool is deployed, criminal organizations somehow end up with it—intentional corruption, intelligence community back-channeling, or simple operational sloppiness.
This isn’t just theoretical. When Pegasus (NSO Group’s spyware) leaked onto the black market, criminal organizations, foreign governments, and rogue intelligence actors accessed it. Paragon Solutions is essentially NSO’s cleaner, more “government-friendly” successor, there is no reason to believe the same thing hasn’t happened with its spyware, primarily since its contracts were awarded with minimal oversight. The cartel’s access to these tools is likely a direct consequence of the same intelligence power structures that push these surveillance firms into government contracts in the first place.
This raises the question: Was ICE itself compromised, or did elements within DHS knowingly introduce spyware into circulation, knowing it would fall into the wrong hands? If cartel networks operate with the same surveillance capabilities as U.S. federal agencies, that’s not just a breach—it’s an intentional act of destabilization. And destabilization, as history has shown, is often a tool used by intelligence agencies to justify more control, surveillance, and funding.
WESTEXEC
This is where things tie back into WestExec Advisors and the broader intelligence community. The Elder Foundation Board is another direct link between the intelligence establishment and the financial networks. WestExec Advisors, the firm co-founded by Antony Blinken, Avril Haines, and other Obama-era intelligence figures, has been deeply embedded in steering tech, surveillance, and national security policy. Their involvement with Paragon Solutions is undeniable, as Paragon was strategically placed to replace NSO in government operations after Pegasus became too politically toxic.
But the Elder Foundation is more than just a financial structure—it’s a strategic nexus where corporate, intelligence, and private elite interests converge. It has connections to the same network that orchestrated the integration of surveillance tech into federal operations under Obama, and by extension, Biden. This is their network, the same people cycling through positions at WestExec, DHS, the intelligence community, and the highest levels of government.
John Brennan, James Clapper, and DHS Board Control
And then we get to John Brennan and James Clapper—two of the most notorious intelligence operatives of the modern era—sitting on the DHS board. This is a massive conflict of interest. These are the exact figures who helped fabricate Russiagate, control the intelligence narrative under Obama, and aggressively pushed mass surveillance efforts.
Through its partnerships with ICE and intelligence agencies, DHS has become one of the primary arms of government surveillance and intelligence coordination. If Brennan and Clapper are on the board, they ensure surveillance contracts (like Paragon’s) serve their interests. This also means they had direct oversight over the decision to introduce Paragon into DHS and ICE’s systems—and, if reports are accurate, they were in a position to allow cartel access to these technologies.
It’s no wonder the Biden administration scrambled to issue a stop-work order on the ICE-Paragon contract after it started gaining attention. The problem isn’t just the contract—the problem is that this contract exposes an entire network of covert operations, intelligence corruption, and cartel entanglements.
Avril Haines, Gates, and Event 201—Connecting to Marc Elias
Avril Haines, one of the architects of the modern intelligence surveillance state, is directly connected to Bill Gates and the globalist surveillance infrastructure through Event 201. Event 201 was a pandemic simulation held in 2019, sponsored by the World Economic Forum, the Gates Foundation, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. It was essentially a test run for mass surveillance, censorship, and control under the guise of pandemic response.
The same intelligence networks that pushed for total pandemic surveillance are behind Paragon’s rise. The connection doesn’t stop there. Marc Elias’ brother is also tied into these networks, linking the surveillance state to the election-rigging machine deployed under the Democratic establishment. Elias is the same guy behind the legal push for mass mail-in ballots, censorship campaigns, and lawfare tactics used to crush political opposition.
The Paragon affair is not just about spyware; it’s about which faction of the intelligence world gets to control it. The major players involved—Obama-era intelligence officials, Israeli cyber elites, and figures like Flynn—represent different sides of a more profound struggle over who sets the rules for global surveillance and covert influence.
The ICE contract allowed Paragon further to establish itself as America’s new go-to spyware provider. Still, the backlash suggests that some factions wanted to halt or at least reconfigure that relationship before it became too public. Whether it was blocked to prevent too much scrutiny or whether it’s just a pause before business resumes behind the scenes remains to be seen.
Ultimately, the key takeaway is this: surveillance technology is one of the most powerful tools in modern geopolitics, and its control is hotly contested. The fight over NSO, Paragon, and firms like them is not just about money—it’s about who gets to see, who gets to act, and who remains unseen in the shadow war of intelligence supremacy.
INTELLIGENCE RACKET
What we are witnessing is not just a government contract gone awry or the quiet restructuring of the surveillance state—it is the continuation of a covert intelligence racket, one that has operated in the shadows for decades, evolving through different administrations while maintaining the same core players. It is a self-sustaining ecosystem where private intelligence firms, government agencies, and corporate elites form an interconnected web, ensuring that control over surveillance, information warfare, and political influence remains in a select few.
Paragon Solutions did not emerge in a vacuum. It is a direct successor to NSO Group, a carefully curated replacement designed to absorb NSO’s capabilities while shedding its public toxicity. The same individuals who facilitated NSO’s rise—figures like Antony Blinken, Dan Shapiro, and Avril Haines—are now embedded in the mechanisms that ushered Paragon into the U.S. national security apparatus. This was not a random market shift; it was an orchestrated transition, one that ensured the power of Israeli cyber-intelligence firms remained intact, while conveniently distancing Washington’s intelligence circles from NSO’s scandals.
The ICE-Paragon contract was not just a routine procurement—it was a deliberate integration of cutting-edge spyware into U.S. domestic security operations, bypassing competitive bidding processes under the pretense of national security necessity.
The significance of the non-competitive nature of the ICE-Paragon contract cannot be overstated. In government procurement, competitive bidding processes exist to ensure transparency, prevent corruption, and allow multiple companies to present their technology for evaluation based on merit, cost-effectiveness, and security risks. When an agency like ICE bypasses this process, it signals that the decision to award the contract was not based on an open assessment of the best available surveillance technology, but rather on predetermined strategic objectives that likely originated from within the intelligence community itself.
Justifying “national security necessity” is a well-worn tactic to circumvent oversight and fast-track classified or sensitive programs into operation without external interference. This case allowed Paragon Solutions to be directly integrated into U.S. domestic surveillance operations without public scrutiny, congressional review, or independent security assessments. The deliberate avoidance of competition raises critical questions about who ensured Paragon’s spyware was selected over alternatives, who within DHS and ICE authorized the decision, and whether there were private negotiations behind the scenes involving intelligence operatives or corporate interests.
This kind of closed-door deal-making is not just about acquiring technology—it is about control. When the government contracts with a firm without allowing competitors to submit proposals, it often means that those in power already knew what they wanted before the process began and ensured that only one outcome was possible. This suggests that Paragon’s selection was a strategic intelligence decision rather than a technological one, positioning it as the new go-to surveillance provider instead of NSO Group, whose spyware became too politically toxic to continue using openly.
The absence of a competitive process also shields the true scope of the contract from being publicly dissected. Had multiple firms been invited to bid, there would have been an opportunity for whistleblowers, cybersecurity experts, and rival companies to challenge the security risks, ethical concerns, or geopolitical implications of integrating Paragon’s spyware into U.S. agencies. By avoiding that process, those pushing the contract ensured no external voices could question why an Israeli-founded surveillance company with ties to military intelligence was being embedded into a primary U.S. law enforcement agency.
This contract was not just about technology procurement—it was about establishing Paragon Solutions as a protected entity within the intelligence framework, ensuring its tools could be deployed without interference. The use of non-competitive procurement indicates a level of urgency or secrecy that goes beyond standard government purchases, suggesting that Paragon was fast-tracked not for operational efficiency, but to guarantee that its surveillance technology was placed directly into federal hands before anyone could object. The implications of this extend far beyond ICE; it represents a structural shift in who controls surveillance technology within the U.S. intelligence ecosystem, and whose interests are being served by ensuring that this contract was never up for debate.
Through this maneuver, DHS and ICE were granted direct access to surveillance technology that could breach encrypted communication channels. This power, if misused, could extend far beyond cartel investigations or border security into the realm of domestic political monitoring, opposition control, and broad-spectrum data harvesting on American citizens.
And yet, as with Pegasus, this technology quickly found its way into the hands of criminal networks. Whether by design or through carefully manufactured “leaks,” the fact remains that cartels, just like certain foreign intelligence agencies, have access to the very spyware the U.S. government claims to be using against them. This pattern—where surveillance tools allegedly meant for security purposes end up in the wrong hands—has become a hallmark of intelligence operations designed to justify broader federal control, increase surveillance budgets, and expand executive power under the guise of containing an emergent threat.
PURSE STRINGS- ELDER FOUNDATION
At the financial heart of this network is the Elder Foundation Board, the bridge between the intelligence apparatus and the global economic elite. This is where power consolidates—not in the fleeting tenure of elected officials, but in the continuity of those who control the funding, investments, and institutional partnerships that keep these operations running. It is not just about surveillance; it is about the privatization of intelligence, where corporations and financial entities dictate the future of cyberwarfare, data control, and election influence.
John Brennan and James Clapper, deeply seated in U.S. intelligence operations spanning multiple administrations, now oversee DHS. This means that they can authorize and expand the use of Paragon’s spyware and control the narrative surrounding its deployment. They are not just passive bureaucrats; they are gatekeepers of the surveillance state, ensuring that the transition from NSO to Paragon serves their broader geopolitical objectives.
Avril Haines, whose ties to Bill Gates and the Event 201 pandemic simulation exposed her role in broader global control mechanisms, connects the intelligence apparatus to the pandemic-era digital tracking and censorship expansion. What was once justified in the name of public health is now an embedded surveillance infrastructure, where intelligence and tech giants collaborate on mapping, monitoring, and controlling information and personal data flow.
And then there is Marc Elias, a name that should not be overlooked. While known primarily for his role in election lawfare, Elias’s influence extends beyond campaign litigation. Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic elections attorney, has played a central role in shaping U.S. voting rights and election integrity through strategic legal efforts. In 2020, he founded Democracy Docket, a platform dedicated to election litigation, where he led over 60 legal challenges to protect “voter access” during that election cycle. The following year, he launched the Elias Law Group, committed to advancing progressive causes by representing Democratic candidates, parties, and organizations in election-related legal battles. Also, Founded in 2022, The 65 Project is a legal advocacy group dedicated to holding accountable attorneys who file “frivolous lawsuits” to overturn what Elias considered legitimate election results. The organization seeks to deter future attempts to undermine democracy by filing ethics complaints against lawyers who engage in such practices, working closely with bar associations to enforce professional standards.
While not officially affiliated, Elias is also informally linked to The 65 Project, a bipartisan initiative established in 2022 to hold attorneys accountable for filing frivolous election lawsuits by pursuing ethics complaints against them. His aggressive approach has drawn criticism, with opponents accusing him of using legal mechanisms as a partisan weapon to shape electoral outcomes. His networks intersect with the intelligence apparatus controlling surveillance and information warfare. It is no coincidence that the same individuals pushing spyware into government agencies also control election mechanisms. The ability to monitor, predict, and manipulate public behavior—whether through surveillance tools or electoral influence—relies on the same infrastructure of data control.
The ICE-Paragon scandal is not just about spyware. It is about the intelligence networks that dictate the future of digital control. It is about a system where surveillance firms, intelligence agencies, and private financial networks operate as a single entity, ensuring that no matter which administration is in power, their influence remains unchallenged.
This isn’t just corruption or bureaucratic mismanagement—it’s a calculated consolidation of power through surveillance, legal warfare, and corporate-government collusion. What we’re witnessing is a multi-layered intelligence operation where control over data means control over politics, security, and society itself. The exposure of Paragon threatens to pull back the curtain on this system, revealing not just its players but its purpose. If NSO and Paragon are titans of spyware locked in a staged rivalry, then the real battle isn’t between them—it’s about who controls the watchers, and what happens when the illusion of competition collapses.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR US CITIZENS?
To avoid data privacy laws, intelligence agencies and their corporate partners rely on legal loopholes, foreign outsourcing, and private sector proxies to conduct surveillance while maintaining plausible deniability. The NSA and CIA charters, which legally prohibit them from engaging in domestic surveillance on U.S. citizens without oversight, are circumvented through alliances with foreign intelligence services, data-sharing agreements, and private companies that operate outside direct governmental control.
The NSA’s charter, established under the National Security Act of 1947 and later expanded through executive orders, was intended to focus on foreign intelligence gathering. However, in practice, the agency has outsourced much of its domestic surveillance to private firms and foreign allies through programs like Five Eyes, PRISM, and XKeyscore, allowing them to collect and process data that would otherwise be restricted by U.S. law. Under its charter, the CIA is explicitly barred from conducting domestic operations. Yet, commercial partnerships, NGOs, and tech firms have influenced domestic surveillance policies and maintained indirect access to vast amounts of data collected under the guise of national security, like Paragon Solutions, NSO, and OTHERS.
One of the most revealing historical links between government surveillance and private sector data collection is DARPA’s LifeLog project, which eerily mirrors the rise of Facebook. LifeLog was a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiative to create a comprehensive digital record of an individual’s existence—capturing communications, habits, locations, financial transactions, and thoughts and preferences. While the project was officially shut down in 2004 due to public backlash over privacy concerns, Facebook launched that same year, offering a civilian-friendly version of what LifeLog had envisioned. Whether by coincidence or design, the structure of social media platforms like Facebook, Google, and Twitter has enabled intelligence agencies to collect, analyze, and influence user data without violating privacy laws directly.
This is the essence of the SURVEILLANCE state, a modern system where governments no longer need to spy on their citizens directly because people willingly submit their personal information through social media, digital transactions, and cloud-based services. The corporate sector has become a de facto intelligence-gathering apparatus, operating under the guise of “enhancing user experience” while feeding data into AI-driven surveillance networks.
NSO Group, and Paragon Solutions, are prime examples of how the surveillance state has evolved. Where once intelligence agencies had to deploy human spies and wiretaps, today, spyware firms act as outsourced intelligence arms, providing governments access to encrypted communications and personal data without requiring legal authorization or direct involvement. The shift from state-run to privatized surveillance enables plausible deniability, shields government agencies from legal liability, and creates an illusion of competition among intelligence-linked tech firms.
When intelligence agencies cannot legally surveil their citizens, they engage in data-sharing partnerships with foreign governments or use privatized surveillance firms to skirt legal barriers. The result is an intelligence complex simultaneously decentralized in operation but unified in purpose—total information control.
FLIPSIDE
The supposed rivalry between NSO Group and Paragon Solutions appears, on the surface, to be a transition from one dominant spyware provider to another. Still, a deeper look suggests something far more calculated— a grand SHOW. Rather than competitors, these two firms may be two faces of the same entity, operating under different branding and political affiliations to maintain strategic access to global intelligence networks. NSO Group, infamous for its Pegasus spyware and its documented misuse by authoritarian regimes, became politically radioactive after widespread media exposure and U.S. government blacklisting. But if the same intelligence networks that backed NSO needed a fresh, untarnished vehicle to continue their surveillance operations, the logical solution would be to rebrand, restructure, and redeploy under a new name—Paragon Solutions.
This isn’t just about optics; it’s about deep infiltration. By engineering a controlled transition from NSO to Paragon, the intelligence apparatus ensured continuous access to global surveillance markets while maintaining plausible deniability when public scrutiny grew too intense around Pegasus. The “rivalry” between the two companies serves as a distraction, creating the illusion of competition when, in reality, the same core technology, personnel, and backers may remain in place, just under a sanitized corporate identity. More importantly, this shift allowed Paragon to embed itself within U.S. government agencies like ICE and DHS—a move that NSO could no longer accomplish due to its tarnished reputation.
But the real trick isn’t just selling surveillance technology—it’s ensuring surveillance is a two-way street. The people deploying these spyware tools believe they are gaining an advantage over their targets, whether they are governments, corporations, or criminal organizations. However, by using these systems, they become compromised. The spyware does not just allow intelligence agencies to spy on their enemies—it will enable those who built and control the spyware to monitor everyone using it. The true goal is not simply providing surveillance tools but infiltrating the institutions and intelligence agencies that deploy them, ensuring that those who think they are in control feed data back to the source.
NSO and Paragon the same? The shift from one to the other was not just a rebranding effort but a strategic move to expand influence, penetrate new markets, and compromise new actors. Intelligence networks are not just interested in what their enemies are doing—they are equally concerned with what their allies, clients, and supposed partners are up to. Through spyware infiltration, they ensure that every entity using their tools—whether a government agency, a corporate security firm, or a foreign intelligence service—is under continuous, invisible surveillance.
This means that the very actors who believe they are wielding power by using these tools are, in reality, subjects of the same surveillance apparatus they think they control. It is a perfect intelligence trap that ensures no one is ever truly in control except those who built the system.
An inescapable invisible digital cage.
If I were the architect of this, I’d be sitting back with a cigarette in hand, admiring the precision of every move, every misdirection, every well-placed illusion. The beauty of it is that even those who think they see through it are still operating inside the design playing their unknowingly assigned roles. Almost poetic.
GAME OVER
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Digital Dominion Volume II hardcover pre-order on sale now. Limited Copies!
