CIA secretly ‘hunting’ Assange activists
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Julian Assange's lawyer accuses the CIA of tapping into activist phones and assaulting them.
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange reacts during a public debate chaired by Jason Cowley, editor of the New Statesman, and hosted by the New Statesman and the Frontline Club at Kensington Town Hall in London, Saturday, April 9, 2011. (AP)
In a scandalous report by the Bombshell Report, activists, lawyers and journalists linked to WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange are being subjected to extensive surveillance and intimidation.
From late-night break-ins, to secretly installing devices to remotely monitor computer activity, to death threats and bizarre mind games meant to disorient and demoralize their targets, it seems little is off-limits when it comes to the push to neutralize the support network that’s cropped up around Assange since his imprisonment.
Individuals were hacked, tracked, burglarized, threatened with death, and thrown in jails for years on dubious charges. Nothing is proven but victims accuse the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of being behind the harassment campaign.
Hacker and internet neutrality activist Andy Muler-Maguhn, who assumes the CIA's involvement due to their description of WikiLeaks as "hostile" in 2017, said in a recent interview with a German outlet that the some tactics used are related to "intimidation surveillance" by US intelligence agencies and their collaborators abroad.
He said, "the point all these years has been to [make it] abundantly clear: We're out to get you."
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The activist's phone was reportedly tapped with a Field Programmable Gate Array carrying US-made chips and which “cannot be detected with a normal frequency locator." This was just one of many apparent victims targeted by the CIA for their association with WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks an 'enemy intelligence service'
The CIA gave the green light after WikiLeaks was declared "not to be a journalistic outlet, but rather an enemy intelligence service." Furthermore, a former senior counterintelligence official later told US media that "there seemed to be no boundaries" anymore.
Assange's lawyer, Aitor Martinez, questions "who could believe that" so many Assange activists were stalked and harrased by mere coincidence. “It's a vendetta against Julian Assange,” he reportedly explained.
For his team, “there is no question that Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks organization, and everyone surrounding Julian are being systematically monitored and intimidated - whether supporters, journalists, lawyers or family members."
Martinez explained that shortly after Pompeo declared WikiLeaks a “hostile intelligence agency,” his wife was accosted by a stranger in the streets of the Paraguayan capital, who grabbed her by the arm and whispered to her in English, “Watch your cellphone!”
Immediately afterward, 230 screenshots of photos, private emails, and text messages suddenly appeared on her cellphone, apparently sent from Martínez's phone, which he says he hadn't touched.
“Then, when we left in a hurry, a man with a plug in his ear followed us at the airport, waving a friendly goodbye,” he added.
His harassers didn’t stop there.
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He reportedly has surveillance footage revealing three masked men enter his place of work in the dead of night in December 2017. The burglars spent six minutes searching for something they were apparently unable to find, according to the footage, before stealing a leg of ham from the kitchen.
“I have handled many delicate cases in my life,” Martínez noted. “I've been threatened, sometimes even by the police. But I've never experienced this level of intimidation.”
He suggests that the perpetrators appear to be ordered by the CIA and that reveals the threat and seriousness of Assange being extradited to the US, which has repeatedly insisted the jailed WikiLeaks founder will receive a fair trial.
