Convicted Ex-CIA Computer Scientist: Passed Secret Files to WikiLeaks

guilty of espionage

The leak started

in 2017

about

8700 classified documents

Which revealed how foreign intelligence agents turned smartphones into listening and monitoring devices. The files revealed the agency’s secret methods of breaking into the computer networks of terrorists and foreign governments. He was arrested immediately.

Authorities searched his New York apartment on that occasion on a warrant that he was suspected of disseminating information on national defense. Schulte was convicted of sending electronic warfare tools

“Vault 7”

From the CIA to the WikiLeaks reporting platform, the international organization he founded

Julian Assange.

Vault 7 was a suite of malware and viruses that, once leaked, were available for use by foreign intelligence groups, hackers, and cyber extortion around the world.

Schulte joined the CIA in 2010 and worked at the agency’s headquarters in

Langley

Ltd., Virginia, for designing software to hack computers, iPhones, Android phones, and smart TVs, and has been held behind bars without bail since 2018.

Sentence –

United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York,

Damian Williams

He drew attention to “the devastating impact this action will have on our intelligence community, providing critical information to those who wish to do us harm.” The former CIA employee represented himself in a Manhattan federal court trial and is now in danger

decades in prison

. Prosecutors also spoke of evidence of an attempt to hide, including a bulleted list containing the heading “Delete suspicious emails.”

other process –

Schulte is facing another trial behind him, where he was convicted of contempt of court and

False statements by the FBI

. But the previous jury failed to agree on eight of the 10 charges, and thus the trial was declared null and void. Schulte’s troubles with the CIA began in the summer of 2015, when he quarreled with management and a colleague, eventually filing a restraining order against his colleague in state court. He left the agency in November 2016.

Reasons for action –

According to the indictment, the crimes were committed by “an employee so dissatisfied with the CIA that he disclosed to the public, and thus to our adversaries, some of our most important intelligence tools.” Prosecutors said the man’s motive appeared to be

anger

For some workplace disputes, where the employer ignored her views. Prosecutors allege that Schulte was motivated to organize the leak because he believed the CIA was disrespectful to him by ignoring his complaints about the work environment. So he wanted to punish those who had wronged him: in this way he also caused great harm to the country’s national security. Schulte defended himself by calling the argument “pure fiction” and claiming to be a

Scapegoat

of the failures of the Central Intelligence Agency. “Hundreds of people have gained access to the leaked files and hundreds of people can steal them,” he said in his closing speech.

While in prison awaiting trial, he continued to commit his crimes by infiltrating the prison a phone with which he attempted to send a reporter more information about the CIA’s IT tools, under the name

Jason Bourne

, the fictional intelligence agent protagonist of the novels of Robert Ludlum. The conviction comes as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange risks…

extradition

in the United States for documents disclosed in 2010 and 2011, which officials said violated the law and put human lives at risk.