"A Lab Like Ours Couldn't Exist in the US": Why the World's Top Spyware Hunter Now Fears America

For two decades, he hunted digital threats from Russia and China. Now, his biggest worry is the United States. In April 2025, Ronald Deibert, director of the world-renowned Citizen Lab, left all his electronic devices at home in Toronto and boarded a plane. After landing in Illinois, he went straight to an Apple Store to buy a new laptop and iPhone. He knew his work made him a prime target for surveillance and wanted to minimize the risk of confiscation. “I’m traveling under the assumption that I am being watched, right down to exactly where I am at any moment,” Deibert says.

Counterintelligence for Civil Society

Deibert founded the Citizen Lab in 2001 at the University of Toronto to serve as “counterintelligence for civil society.” It operates independently of governments and corporations, investigating cyberthreats exclusively in the public interest. For two decades, the lab has exposed some of the most egregious digital abuses globally.

The lab's 2009 report, “Tracking GhostNet,” put it on the map by uncovering a Chinese digital espionage network that had breached diplomatic offices in over 100 countries. Since then, the lab has published over 180 analyses. It was the first to uncover the use of commercial spyware to surveil people close to Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi before his assassination.

A Democracy at Risk

For years, Deibert held up the US as a standard for liberal democracy, but he says that's changing. “The pillars of democracy are under assault in the United States,” he states. “For many decades, in spite of its flaws, it has upheld norms about what constitutional democracy looks like or should aspire to. [That] is now at risk.” His concerns are fueled by actions from the second Trump administration.

In 2025, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reactivated a $2 million contract with the spyware vendor Paragon, a deal the Biden administration had previously halted. Furthermore, the Trump administration defunded a key government oversight body in September and threatened to freeze federal funding to non-compliant universities. Deibert says these actions undermine the independence of watchdogs and research groups.

A Safe Haven in the North

Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), says the lab’s location is now a crucial asset. “Having the Citizen Lab based in Toronto and able to continue to do its work largely free of the things we’re seeing in the US,” she says, “could end up being tremendously important if we’re going to return to a place of the rule of law.” This independence allows the lab to scrutinize not only authoritarian regimes but also the worrying digital trends emerging in Western democracies.