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Mercury hires British lobbyists as Israeli spyware firm faces global backlash

Mercury Public Affairs is tapping former British officials to help lobby for Q Cyber Technologies and its better known subsidiary the NSO Group as the Israeli spyware company faces a global backlash.
A man reads at a stand of the NSO Group Technologies, an Israeli technology firm known for its Pegasus spyware enabling the remote surveillance of smartphones, at the annual European Police Congress in Berlin, Germany, February 4, 2020. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke - RC2MTE9GIMJ9

Mercury Public Affairs is tapping former British officials to help lobby for Q Cyber Technologies and its better known subsidiary the NSO Group as the Israeli spyware company faces a global backlash over accusations that it helped authoritarian regimes spy on dissidents. In addition to five US citizens retained in January to help fight against lawsuits in the United States, Mercury has now added three people in its London office to the account.

Mercury Vice President Toby Denselow, a former aide to British lawmaker Glenda Jackson,  and Senior Vice President George Tucker, a former British diplomat, joined the account in January but their filings were only made public by the US Justice Department this week. They join former Labour Party staffer Louis Rynsard, whose work on the account was already known. Mercury did not respond to a request for comment.

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