As Syria’s crackdown on protests has claimed more than 3,000 lives since March, Italian technicians...have been busy equipping President Bashar al-Assad’s regime with the power to intercept, scan and catalog virtually every e-mail that flows through the country. Employees of Area SpA, a surveillance company...are installing the system under the direction of Syrian intelligence agents, who’ve pushed the Italians to finish, saying they urgently need to track people, a person familiar with the project says...Area is using equipment from...NetApp Inc. (NTAP)...Qosmos SA...Utimaco Safeware AG (USA)...The suppliers didn’t directly furnish Syria with the gear, which Area exported from Italy...“Any company selling monitoring surveillance technology to the Assad regime is complicit in human rights crimes," [says Mark Dubowitz, executive director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies]...Area Chief Executive Officer Andrea Formenti says he can’t discuss specific clients or contracts, and that the company follows all laws and export regulations...Qosmos, CEO Thibaut Bechetoille said he would pull out of the project. “It was not right to keep supporting this regime,” he says...“NetApp takes these matters very seriously and is committed to global trade compliance,” Jodi Baumann, NetApp’s...senior director for corporate communications, said...Utimaco General Manager Malte Pollmann says his company relies on Area to ensure its equipment is used and exported legally. [also refers to Syrian Telecom (STE), Sophos, Blue Coat Systems]