The CIA is “the biggest purveyor of malicious computer viruses in the world….The CIA division would, after hacking into a computer system, leave tell-tale markers in foreign languages including Iranian and Russian“" pointing to the way “in which supposedly forensic evidence of such things as “Russian interference” in the 2016 US election could be manufactured by the CIA.”
2/15/2020, “Alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower Joshua Schulte on trial in New York,” wsws.org, Oscar Grenfell
“The criminal trial of Joshua Schulte, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee accused by the US government of leaking documents exposing illegal global spying operations, began in a New York federal courtroom this month. Hearings are ongoing.
The 31-year-old has pled not guilty to 11 charges. They cover alleged violations of the Espionage Act, including the “theft of government property” and “illegal transmission of unlawfully possessed national defense information.”…
The corporate media is seeking to suppress any public discussion of the Schulte trial. The handful of reports in the New York Times, Washington Post and other prominent publications have said virtually nothing about the assault on whistleblowers revealed in Schulte’s treatment, or the content of the material he is alleged to have leaked. It is as if Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who came to international prominence by exposing US National Security Agency surveillance operations, were on trial in New York and the media did not bother to show up.
The 2017, WikiLeaks publications, based on material Schulte has alleged to have leaked exposing CIA spying, were no less damning than the Snowden revelations. US prosecutors have stated that they constituted the “the single biggest leak of classified national defense information in the history of the CIA.”
Dubbed Vault 7, the documents detailed the activities of a secret division within the CIA responsible for offensive hacking operations. They reveal the agency as the biggest purveyor of malicious computer viruses in the world.
Among the most explosive revelations were documents showing that the CIA division would, after hacking into a computer system, leave tell-tale markers in foreign languages including Iranian and Russian. This pointed to the way in which supposedly forensic evidence of such things as “Russian interference” in the 2016 US election could be manufactured by the CIA.
The trove demonstrated that the CIA had developed capabilities to hack household appliances, including smart TVs, so that they could be used to spy on their owner. It contained evidence of even more sinister operations. One document showed that the division was seeking to develop the capacity to remotely take control of the computer operating systems of modern cars. Such capabilities could be used for assassination operations.
The illegal character of these activities, which violated the US Constitution and potentially infringed on the right to privacy of millions around the world, has been covered up by the media and the official political parties in the US and around the world. Instead, Schulte and Assange have been viciously targeted.
WikiLeaks’ publication of Vault 7 in early 2017 was followed by a frenzied hunt within the CIA for the whistleblower. It was the trigger for a major intensification of Washington’s pursuit of Assange. This culminated in the increasingly-US aligned Ecuadorian government’s expulsion of Assange from its London embassy last year and his detention in Britain….
The proceedings provide a glimpse into the kind of kangaroo court that Julian Assange will face if he is extradited from Britain to the US to face trumped-up Espionage Act charges over separate 2010 and 2011 WikiLeaks publications. If Schulte is convicted, it may also aid the attempts of the US Department of Justice to concoct further charges against Assange, on the grounds that he violated US “national security.””…
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