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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday April 15 2017, @06:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the everybody-is-somebody's-enemy dept.

The current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mike Pompeo, has described WikiLeaks as a "non-state hostile intelligence service":

Russian military intelligence used Wikileaks to distribute hacked material during the US election, he added. Earlier this month Wikileaks published details of what it said were CIA hacking tools. The FBI and CIA have launched a criminal investigation into the leak.

"WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service," Mr Pompeo said, speaking at a Washington think tank. "It overwhelmingly focuses on the US, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organisations," he added.

Wikileaks responded by posting a screenshot of a tweet sent by Mr Pompeo last July, in which the then member of the House of Representatives referred to material contained in the Wikileaks release of Democratic party emails. The tweet has since been deleted.

Does that make the CIA a "state hostile intelligence service"?


Original Submission

Related Stories

U.S. Justice Department Considering Charges Against Julian Assange 41 comments

U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors may bring charges against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange soon:

Two media reports say U.S. prosecutors are preparing or closely considering charges against the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, including its founder Julian Assange, for revealing sensitive government secrets. CNN (http://cnn.it/2pINsBT) reported Thursday that authorities are preparing to seek Assange's arrest. The Washington Post (http://wapo.st/2pJgy4k) reported prosecutors are weighing charges against the organization's members after the Obama-era Justice Department declined to do so.

Possible charges include conspiracy, theft of government property and violating the Espionage Act, the newspaper said, though any charges would need approval from high-ranking officials in the Justice Department. The move comes after WikiLeaks last month released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIA's cyberespionage tools for breaking into computers, cellphones and even smart TVs. It previously published 250,000 State Department cables and embarrassed the U.S. military with hundreds of thousands of logs from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Also at BBC, DW.

Previously: WikiLeaks Says It Has Obtained Trove of CIA Hacking Tools
Wikileaks and CIA Hacking Tools -- Security Firms Assess Impact as Tech Companies Offered Access
Cisco Reports Bug Disclosed in WikiLeaks' Vault 7 CIA Dump
Wikileaks Releases Code That Could Unmask CIA Hacking Operations
CIA Director Mike Pompeo Calls WikiLeaks a "Non-State Hostile Intelligence Service"


Original Submission

Comey Faces Congress: Mild Nausea and "Intelligence Porn" 22 comments

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey appeared before a U.S. Senate panel on May 3rd to defend his agency's conduct under his leadership during the 2016 elections:

Comey acknowledged that the realization the bureau could have affected the election's outcome left him feeling "mildly nauseous." But, he added, "honestly, it wouldn't change the decision." Comey has been transformed into an unusual kind of political celebrity over the past year, his decisions coming in for sharp criticism from almost every point of the political spectrum.

News reports have cited anonymous sources within the intelligence community casting him as too fond of the spotlight, despite his repeated insistence to the contrary. Whether he sought it or not, Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing was yet another center-stage moment for the FBI director. Cable networks carried virtually uninterrupted coverage of his testimony from the moment he took his seat before a scrum of news photographers.

Comey explained his reasoning behind the decision to inform Congress about Clinton emails discovered during an investigation into Anthony Weiner, and said that he had made the right choice. One event that factored into the decision and his earlier July 2016 announcement about the Hillary Clinton investigation was Bill Clinton's meeting with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. At Wednesday's hearing, Comey faced criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike on topics including the FBI's delay in disclosing an investigation into the Trump campaign and the decision to not charge Huma Abedin for mishandling classified information. On the day before the hearing, Hillary Clinton blamed the FBI Director for her loss, while President Trump tweeted that "FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!"

Comey appeared to confirm that the FBI is investigating whether its agents leaked information to Rudy Giuliani, a Trump ally. He also took the time to denigrate WikiLeaks by calling it "intelligence porn", and alleging that WikiLeaks acted as a "conduit for the Russian intelligence services or some other adversary of the United States just to push out information to damage the United States". Here's what Julian Assange had to say in response. Comey did not confirm whether or not the government is planning to charge Julian Assange with crimes related to his organization's recent activities. CNN reported in April that the U.S. is preparing to charge Assange with... something, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo recently called WikiLeaks a "non-state hostile intelligence service".

Also at The Washington Post, CNN, and The New York Times (editorial).


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @06:56PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @06:56PM (#494522)

    Does that make the CIA a "state hostile intelligence service"?

    Yes, as hostile as NSA is.

    • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Saturday April 15 2017, @07:58PM (2 children)

      by shortscreen (2252) on Saturday April 15 2017, @07:58PM (#494543) Journal

      CIA does the torture, sabotage, assassination, and smuggling. NSA are all desk jockies.

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 15 2017, @08:15PM (1 child)

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday April 15 2017, @08:15PM (#494549) Journal

        NSA are cyberhostiles.

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
        • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @04:57AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @04:57AM (#494679)

          Since 2001 the CIA has gained political and budgetary preeminence over the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The CIA found itself building not just its now infamous drone fleet, but a very different type of covert, globe-spanning force — its own substantial fleet of hackers. The agency's hacking division freed it from having to disclose its often controversial operations to the NSA (its primary bureaucratic rival) in order to draw on the NSA's hacking capacities.

          By the end of 2016, the CIA's hacking division, which formally falls under the agency's Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), had over 5000 registered users and had produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other "weaponized" malware. Such is the scale of the CIA's undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilized more code than that used to run Facebook. The CIA had created, in effect, its "own NSA" with even less accountability and without publicly answering the question as to whether such a massive budgetary spend on duplicating the capacities of a rival agency could be justified.

          -- https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/ [wikileaks.org]

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday April 15 2017, @07:12PM (8 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday April 15 2017, @07:12PM (#494530) Journal

    Do you know what we call an intelligence agency that releases all the intelligence it finds to the public? Journalists.

    • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday April 15 2017, @07:47PM (1 child)

      by hemocyanin (186) on Saturday April 15 2017, @07:47PM (#494539) Journal

      Ideally that is so. Most however, see their job as being a publisher of press releases and body extras for cocktail parties hosted by those providing press releases.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Saturday April 15 2017, @11:59PM (5 children)

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Saturday April 15 2017, @11:59PM (#494602) Homepage Journal

      While I generally applaud Wikileaks for releasing information about how the US government (Full disclosure: it's my government) is using its resources to spy on its own people as well as others, as well as the ethically challenged environment inside those TLAs, I find it interesting that they haven't really done similar stuff with other countries' information.

      Why is that? A few options come to mind:

      • The US is really incompetent at securing its "classified" information;
      • Its employees are saleable to the highest bidder;
      • Other countries are much, much better at securing their systems;
      • The employees of other countries are incorruptible
      • Wikileaks focuses on the US and doesn't expose other countries' data

      The first, second and fifth items seem the most plausible to me, with the fifth item making me wonder what sort of agenda Mr. Assange and his associates have.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:13AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:13AM (#494643)

        Yeah, wikileaks has some hate for the USA. It was really obvious from the "Collateral Murder" title and the really unfair editing on the short version of the video. But also...

        6. The consequences are minor. If you tried this with Russia, you'd drink polonium tea. If you tried this with North Korea, you'd get the nerve agent face massage. The US might, possibly, put you in prison.

        7. The US is really incompetent at background checks, largely due to political correctness. We give clearances to people who were not born in the USA. We give clearances to Muslims and Jews, despite numerous spy issues with both. (we don't even ask about religion -- you can be a cult member) We don't ask about politics either. Basically, we have taken obvious criteria out of consideration.

      • (Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:19AM (3 children)

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:19AM (#494645) Journal

        I'm sensing a sixth option.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_material_published_by_WikiLeaks [wikipedia.org]

        They have released a lot of non-U.S. material with a non-U.S. origin, but you haven't noticed or acknowledged it. They might get more from the U.S. because WikiLeaks is primarily English language, the U.S. is the evil empire/world's policeman and has fingers in all kinds of pies, leaving more of itself exposed, and the U.S. agencies are more prone to lying about their mission which causes employees to question what they signed up for (such as the NSA's dual security/surveillance mission).

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
        • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:36AM (2 children)

          I'm sensing a sixth option.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_material_published_by_WikiLeaks [wikipedia.org]

          They have released a lot of non-U.S. material with a non-U.S. origin, but you haven't noticed or acknowledged it. They might get more from the U.S. because WikiLeaks is primarily English language, the U.S. is the evil empire/world's policeman and has fingers in all kinds of pies, leaving more of itself exposed, and the U.S. agencies are more prone to lying about their mission which causes employees to question what they signed up for (such as the NSA's dual security/surveillance mission).

          A fair point. At the same time, you'd think that there are people of conscience in Russia or China, yet we haven't seen much from those governments. It may well be that an English language bias is at work. Then again, there's hasn't been much out of the UK either.

          At the same time, just calling a partisan prick like Pompeo out on his hypocrisy isn't enough IMHO. We should always ask the question "who benefits the most" from such activity.

          I don't claim to be right, nor do I think that the options I presented are the only possibilities. I was hoping to stir discussion. Thanks for putting in your $0.02.

          --
          No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
          • (Score: 2) by lx on Sunday April 16 2017, @07:05AM (1 child)

            by lx (1915) on Sunday April 16 2017, @07:05AM (#494714)
            It's a numbers game. In the US there are millions of people with security clearance [google.com]. Many are private contractors. That's a lot of opportunities for secrets to fall into the hands of those willing to leak.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @07:35AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @07:35AM (#494724)

              It doesn't help that the "secrets" are more like "List of People We Killed For More or Less No Reason" rather than "List of Places We Keep Our Emergency Cash".

  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Bot on Saturday April 15 2017, @07:53PM

    by Bot (3902) on Saturday April 15 2017, @07:53PM (#494541) Journal

    There are two kind of Italians, those that cannot keep their mouth shut, and those few that know how to do that, which get enrolled in the mafia. Neither of which seems a good choice for the head of the CIA.

    --
    Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by snufu on Saturday April 15 2017, @07:58PM (3 children)

    by snufu (5855) on Saturday April 15 2017, @07:58PM (#494544)

    Is this white house genuinely as paranoid as they act, or is it some kind of incompetent chaotic performance art parody of Nixonian administration?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday April 15 2017, @08:17PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday April 15 2017, @08:17PM (#494551) Journal

      Probably any CIA Director could be made to say this if you rubbed the right neurons together. The military and intelligence community love to talk about "non-state actors".

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 1) by Pax on Saturday April 15 2017, @08:31PM

      by Pax (5056) on Saturday April 15 2017, @08:31PM (#494555)

      Is this white house genuinely as paranoid as they act, or is it some kind of incompetent chaotic performance art parody of Nixon administration?

      FTFY

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @09:24PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @09:24PM (#494561)

      It's not paranoia when somebody actually is out to get you, for real. That is the case here.

      In other news, "hate" and "fear" are sometimes the proper and correct emotions, fully justified. An inability to experience these emotions is mental illness.

  • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:49AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:49AM (#494638)

    An organization run by an alleged rapist that willingly helped sway an election to a racist, sexist, capitalist megalomaniac which prides itself on "Never getting anything wrong!" yet actively trying to destabilize the US by irresponsibly releasing HIGHLY classified and sensitive information leading directly to possible cyber attacks worldwide IS AN ENEMY OF THE MODERN WORLD.
    I don't care if Russia is funding them. They are trying to fucking ruin everything. I get so mad about this I can't even see straight sometimes. Why does anyone give them any credit at all? This is the fakest possible news of fake news, my god.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:36AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:36AM (#494654) Journal

      An organization run by an alleged rapist

      As much as I'm floored by your crap sandwich of a comment, I'll give you points for using "alleged".

      that willingly helped sway an election to a racist, sexist, capitalist megalomaniac

      The Democratic Party had their work cut out for them. Clinton ruined it, and she owns that, not WikiLeaks or the Russians. Voters gonna vote.

      releasing HIGHLY classified and sensitive information leading directly to possible cyber attacks worldwide IS AN ENEMY OF THE MODERN WORLD

      Gee, maybe the CIA/NSA should have thought of that and fixed vulns instead of exploit them. Oh, right, securing computer systems is antithetical to their true mission.

      Identifying vulnerabilities is the first step to getting them fixed. And "responsible disclosure" is just a way for corporations to cover their asses. But you did forget that Assange has at least offered to give tech companies exclusive access to vulnerabilities [nytimes.com].

      They are trying to fucking ruin everything. I get so mad about this I can't even see straight sometimes.

      Correction: You are getting so mad about WikiLeaks (or more likely, God Emperor Trump) that you can't even think straight.

      Why does anyone give them any credit at all? This is the fakest possible news of fake news, my god.

      Lol, get noided kid. If your post isn't humor/trolling, you might be the most naïve anon in history.

      WikiLeaks should keep doing what it does, but ultimately, the brand name is not what matters. What matters is that people are going to leak information, whether it is to WikiLeaks, some other organization, or on Pastebin/BitTorrent/Tor/etc. You might be able to stop the "ENEMY OF THE MODERN WORLD", but good luck stopping the trend.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
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