NCRI – Nokia-Siemens Networks (NSN), a joint venture between the Finnish cell-phone giant Nokia and German powerhouse Siemens, last year installed an electronic surveillance system for Iran that target dissidents, Washington Times reported on Monday.
NSN is a major contractor to the U.S. government and a top cell-phone equipment maker. Recently a number of US lawmakers have called for tougher sanction on companies that trade with Iranian regime.
According to the Times, a spokesman for NSN said the servers were sold for "lawful intercept functionality," a technical term used by the cell-phone industry to refer to law enforcement's ability to tap phones, read e-mails and surveil electronic data on communications networks.
“In Iran, a country that frequently jails dissidents and where the regime’s opponents rely heavily on Web-based communication with the outside world, a monitoring center that can archive these intercepts could provide a valuable tool to intensify repression,” Washington Times added.
