Former Twitter employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia by digging into accounts of kingdom critics
Former
Twitter employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia by digging into accounts
of kingdom critics
Ellen Nakashima and Greg Bensinger, The Washington Post 8:05 pm
EST, Wednesday, November 6, 2019
The charges came a day after the arrest of one
of the former Twitter employees, Ahmad Abouammo, a U.S. citizen who is alleged
to have spied on the accounts of three users on behalf of the government in
Riyadh.
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department has charged
two former Twitter employees with spying for Saudi Arabia by accessing the
company's information on dissidents who use the platform, marking the first
time federal prosecutors have publicly accused the kingdom of running agents in
the United States.
One of those implicated in the scheme, according
to court papers, is an associate of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who
the CIA has concluded likely ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal
Khashoggi in Istanbul last year.
The case highlights the issue of foreign powers
exploiting American social media platforms to identify critics and suppress
their voices. And it raises concerns about the ability of Silicon Valley to
protect the private information of dissidents and other users from repressive
governments.
The charges, unveiled Wednesday in San
Francisco, came a day after the arrest of one of the former Twitter employees,
Ahmad Abouammo, a U.S. citizen who is alleged to have spied on the accounts of
three users - including one whose posts discussed the inner workings of the
Saudi leadership - on behalf of the government in Riyadh.
Abouammo is also charged with falsifying an
invoice to obstruct an FBI investigation.
The second former Twitter employee - Ali
Alzabarah, a Saudi citizen - was accused of accessing the personal information
of more than 6,000 Twitter accounts in 2015 on behalf of Saudi Arabia. One of
those accounts belonged to a prominent dissident, Omar Abdulaziz, who later
became close to Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist who
advocated for free expression in the Arab world.
Prosecutors said a third individual, Saudi
citizen Ahmed Almutairi, acted as an intermediary between Saudi officials and
the Twitter employees. He is also charged with spying. Alzabarah and Almutairi
are believed to be in Saudi Arabia.
"The criminal complaint unsealed today
alleges that Saudi agents mined Twitter's internal systems for personal
information about known Saudi critics and thousands of other Twitter
users," said U.S. Attorney David Anderson. "We will not allow U.S.
companies or U.S. technology to become tools of foreign repression in violation
of U.S. law."
Twitter restricts access to sensitive account
information "to a limited group of trained and vetted employees,"
said a spokesman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity "to protect the
safety" of Twitter personnel. "We understand the incredible risks
faced by many who use Twitter to share their perspectives with the world and to
hold those in power accountable. We have tools in place to protect their
privacy and their ability to do their vital work."
The three men are accused of working with a
Saudi official who leads a charitable organization belonging to Mohammed. Based
on a description of the charity, the official is Bader Al Asaker, which was
confirmed by a person familiar with the case, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to discuss an ongoing case. Asaker's charity, MiSK, belongs to
Mohammed bin Salman, who is referred to in the complaint as Royal Family Member
1.
According to the complaint, Asaker was
"working for and at the direction of" Mohammed "with respect to
his online presence" on Twitter. In 2015, when most of the activity took
place, Mohammed was a rising figure in the Saudi royal family.
After King Abdullah died in January 2015 and
Mohammed's father, Salman, took the throne, he was appointed defense minister
and a few months later, deputy crown prince. The activity was particularly
pronounced - with Abouammo repeatedly viewing the dissident Abdulaziz' data and
calling Asaker - in that period.
The Saudi Embassy did not respond to a request
for comment.
The case shows "just how early" the
pursuit of Mohammed's critics began as well as "a willingness to pursue
these people even when it involves the subversion of major American
corporations and the targeting of people in friendly countries," said
Brookings Institution senior fellow Tamara Cofman Wittes.
The charges also reflect the wealth of data that
tech firms compile on their users, including email addresses, payment methods,
and Internet protocol addresses that can give up a user's location.
The case "is incredibly significant,"
said Adam Coogle, a Human Rights Watch researcher who just published a study on
Saudi Arabia's targeting of dissidents. "Twitter is the de facto public
space of Saudi Arabia - the place where Saudi citizens come and discuss issues.
It's a space in which the Saudi authorities have used various means to curtail
critical voices, including by seeking to unmask anonymous accounts."
President Trump has drawn criticism for his
administration's continuing close relations with the Saudi government, which
has yet to act decisively against those involved in the Khashoggi killing.
Asaker began cultivating Twitter employees in
2014 in an effort to gather user information the Saudi government could not
obtain elsewhere, the complaint alleges.
Abouammo, who was arrested in Seattle, worked
for Twitter as a media partnerships manager. He met Asaker in London in late
2014. Within a week, he began illicitly accessing data for the Saudis,
according to the complaint. One of his targets was referred to in the complaint
as "Twitter User 1," a "prominent critic" of the Saudi
kingdom and royal family with more than 1 million followers. The description
matches the account of @Mujtahidd, the Twitter handle for an anonymous
individual whose disclosures about corruption in the Saudi leadership have
angered officials there. The identity of the targeted account was confirmed by
the person familiar with the case.
Asaker paid Abouammo at least $300,000 for his
efforts and also gave him a watch worth about $20,000, the complaint alleged.
In May 2015, Abouammo resigned from Twitter and moved to Seattle.
Last fall, an FBI agent interviewed Abouammo at
his home about the watch and his communications with Asaker and others.
According to the complaint, Abouammo created a false receipt using his home
computer during the interview to show a $100,000 payment received from Asaker
to disguise the payments as media strategy work.
Alzabarah was hired by Twitter in August 2013 as
a site reliability engineer. His work as a Saudi agent began in May 2015, the
complaint alleged. By then, Asaker was an employee of the Saudi royal court and
had become director of Mohammed's private office.
In May 2015, Alzabarah flew to Washington, D.C.,
where he had plans to meet Asaker, according to the complaint. Almutairi was
also in Washington at the time, as was Mohammed, who paid a visit to the White
House.
Within a week of returning to San Francisco,
Alzabarah began to trawl through Twitter users' private data "en
masse," the complaint alleges. As Abouammo had done, Alzabarah looked at
@Mujtahidd's account. He also scrutinized the account of "a well-known and
influential critic" of the government who lives in asylum in Canada, a
description that matches Abdulaziz, whose identity in the case was confirmed by
the person familiar with the matter.
Abdulaziz last month sued Twitter, alleging it
failed to alert him that his account had been hacked by Alzabarah despite, the
suit says, Twitter having reason to believe that had happened. Abdulaziz, whose
two brothers have been detained by the Saudi government, forged a friendship
with Khashoggi in 2017. The two were organizing a project inside Saudi Arabia to
challenge pro-government trolls on Twitter in the months before Khashoggi's
killing.
On Dec. 2, Twitter confronted Alzabarah about
his accessing of user data. He said he did so "out of curiosity," the
complaint said. He was placed on leave. The following day, he flew to Saudi
Arabia.
Comments
Post a Comment