A former CIA employee received a 40-year prison sentence for passing on confidential hacking tools to Wikileaks.
Joshua Schulte was also declared guilty of having pictures of children being hurt.
The prosecutors said he gave out secret spy tools that let agents hack into smartphones and listen in on people.
They said the leak is one of the most “bold” in US history.
Schulte, who is 35 years old, gave Wikileaks about 8,761 documents in 2017. This was the biggest data breach in the history of the CIA, according to the US justice department.
He said he didn’t do it, but he was found guilty at three different trials in New York in 2020, 2022, and 2023.
On Thursday, he was punished for spying, hacking into computers, disobeying the court, lying to the FBI and having inappropriate pictures of children.
US Attorney Damian Williams said that Joshua Schulte betrayed the country by doing very bad spying crimes.
During the trial, it was shown that Schulte worked as a computer programmer for the Center for Cyber Intelligence. This center spies on terrorist groups and other countries using the internet.
In 2016, prosecutors said he gave the stolen information to Wikileaks and then lied to FBI agents about it.
They said he was angry because of a problem at work.
Schulte was having a hard time finishing his work on time. Assistant US Attorney Michael Lockard said one of his projects was behind schedule and people were calling him “Drifting Deadline”.
The lawyers said he wanted to harm those who he believed did something bad to him and in doing that, he caused a lot of harm to the country’s safety.
Wikileaks started sharing secret information from the files in 2017.
The information that was leaked caused a lot of harm to the CIA. It made it harder for them to spy on other countries and put their people and important work in danger. It also cost the CIA a lot of money.
The FBI talked to Schulte many times after WikiLeaks released the information, and he said he didn’t do it.
Prosecutors said they found a lot of inappropriate pictures of children in his apartment.
They also said that after he was arrested, Schulte tried to send more information. He brought a phone into jail and tried to send a reporter secret information about CIA cyber groups. He also wrote tweets about CIA cyber tools under the name Jason Bourne, a made-up spy character.
He has been in jail since 2018.
Tag: CIA
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Former CIA hacker receives 40-year prison sentence
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China makes second public accusation of CIA espionage against government employee
As Beijing increases its attention and rhetoric on national security, Chinese officials on Monday officially accused a government employee of spying for the CIA. This is the second high-profile espionage case to be made public this month.
The Ministry of State Security, the nation’s civilian intelligence organisation, stated in a statement that it is looking into a cadre at an unnamed ministry who was allegedly recruited by the CIA when he was studying in Japan.
According to the ministry, the 39-year-old Chinese national, only known by his last name Hao, met a representative of the US embassy in Japan while he was requesting a US visa.
According to the statement, the US official treated Hao to dinners, sent him gifts, and paid him to assist with the writing of a research paper in order to foster a close relationship.
The ministry asserted that after introducing Hao to a coworker, a representative of the US embassy requested him to go back to China to work for a “core and critical department.” The colleague eventually revealed himself to be a CIA agent.
According to the statement, Hao allegedly consented, signed an espionage contract with the US, and underwent training.
After arriving home in China, Hao was hired by a ministry and allegedly met with CIA officials several times to “provide intelligence and collect espionage funds,” according to the Chinese spy agency. It stated that more research is being done on the matter.
A worker at an unnamed Chinese military industrial organisation who was supposedly recruited while studying in Italy was found to be a spy for the CIA, according to a declaration made just 10 days earlier by the same ministry.
The Ministry of State Security made statements regarding both events on Wechat, China’s super app, where it had earlier this month created its first social media account with a public profile.
The covert organisation, which manages counterintelligence operations both domestically and abroad, has raised its prominence to deter espionage among Chinese citizens.
The ministry encouraged “all members of society” to take part in the fight against espionage in its first post on Wechat, and it promised awards and protection for those who shared information.
To combat what he perceives as mounting threats from “foreign forces,” particularly the United States, to undermine China’s progress and political stability, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made national security a top priority.
Long-standing spying relationships between the US and China have intensified due to the recent deterioration in relations between the two greatest economies in the world.
Two US Navy sailors in California earlier this month were detained on suspicion of giving Chinese espionage agents confidential US military information.