Twitter employee accused of spying for KSA heads to trial

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From 2013 until 2015, Ahmad Abouammo was in charge of promoting the Twitter accounts of celebrities, journalists, and other significant personalities in the Middle East. 

However, the Justice Department says he abused his access to Twitter user data, obtaining personal information from political dissidents and passing it on to Saudi Arabia in exchange for a costly watch and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He is scheduled to attend a trial in federal court in San Francisco this week on charges of working as an agent of a foreign authority inside the United States, conducting wire fraud and laundering money.

“We look forward to vindicating Abouammo and for him to have his day in court,” said Angela Chuang, a lawyer representing him. The government expects Abouammo’s legal team to argue that he worked lawfully as a consultant to Saudi Arabia, according to a court filing. Chuang declined to comment on legal strategy.
 
The case, which demonstrates the Saudi government's zeal in obtaining information about its detractors, is happening at a critical juncture in US-Saudi diplomacy.

US-KSA diplomatic struggle

The allegations resurfaced in light of President Biden's first visit to the country, which he had previously sworn to make a "pariah", last week, in the hopes of establishing better Saudi-Israeli relations and relief from high gas prices.

Biden met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and other Saudi officials. Human rights campaigners, meanwhile, slammed the visit, accusing the President of ignoring the death of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist killed by Saudi operatives in 2018.

#ElonMusk has threatened to walk away from his $44 billion buyout deal for #Twitter Inc if the social media company fails to provide data on spam and fake accounts. pic.twitter.com/NVq1aSGNhi

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) June 7, 2022

Twitter tightens employee access

Twitter has stated that it has reduced employee access to user data since Abouammo's departure in 2015, but the firm continued to face security issues. Hackers used the accounts of notable people, including Elon Musk, to promote a cryptocurrency hoax in 2020.

Twitter agreed to pay a $150 million fine in May to settle allegations that it deceived users about how it handled their personal data. Twitter informed users that it was collecting their email addresses and phone numbers to protect their accounts, but that the information was also used to assist marketers to target advertisements.

What are Abouammo and Alzabarah accused of? 

Abouammo and another former Twitter employee, Ali Alzabarah, were charged in 2019. According to the Justice Department, the individuals exploited their Twitter accounts to gather information about thousands of people, which they then provided to Ahmed Almutairi, who the department claims served as their go-between with Saudi officials.

It is worth mentioning that Almutairi previously owned a social media marketing firm that provided services to the Saudi royal family.

According to the Justice Department, the men obtained "private user data, such as device identifiers, phone numbers, and IP addresses, all of which may have been utilized by the Saudi government to identify and locate the individuals behind the accounts, including political dissidents."

Read next: Twitter fined in US for selling users' data

The Justice Department reported that when Twitter management approached Alzabarah, he fled to Saudi Arabia. He and Almutairi are still wanted by US authorities. However, Abouammo was detained in Seattle in 2019 after briefly working at Amazon after quitting Twitter. He is out on bail, but he came to San Francisco Bay Area for trial.

According to persons familiar with the case, one of the 6,000 Twitter accounts that Alzabarah is suspected of looking at on behalf of Saudi officials in 2015 belonged to Omar Abdulaziz, a famous Saudi dissident and confidant of Khashoggi. According to his lawyers and court records, Abdulaziz has sued Twitter for the breach, and the issue is currently in mediation.

“The problem is bigger than Abouammo,” said Behnam Gharagozli, Abdulaziz's lawyer. “The problem is systemic here. The problem is the way the data was handled back then.”