A former CIA software engineer has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for what the government called the biggest theft of classified information in CIA history and for possession of child sexual abuse images and videos.
“We will likely never know the full extent of the damage, but I have no doubt it was massive,” Judge Jesse M. Furman said as he announced the sentence.
Schulte was responsible for “the most damaging disclosures of classified information in American history.”
When people claim that leaks “get people killed,” they’re referring to when undercover agents are identified while they’re in the field. The only secrets exposed in these leaks are the computer hacking techniques used by the US to spy remotely through compromised devices.
The so-called Vault 7 leak revealed how the CIA hacked Apple and Android smartphones in overseas spying operations, and efforts to turn internet-connected televisions into listening devices.
You could maybe say that closing off those surveillance channels prevented the CIA from learning about some attack, but that’s really tenuous. It also assumes that the CIA isn’t constantly developing new zero-day exploits so that they can continue to spy on just about everyone on the planet.
Why should he go to trial? It’s not going to be a fair trial, and the people have a right to know that the US government is illegally surveilling them. If he truly did directly kill people as a result of his leak, there would already be preliminary evidence.
If they publicly released that his leak got someone in particular killed, they would be admitting publicly that the person killed was an agent. In most cases they would not want to tip their hand on that for fear of exposing other agents.
They take the man’s entire life away because he revealed us terrible things our non-elected leaders are doing to us. Who was hurt by his actions?
must be nice not having to understand things
he got people killed, and you don’t care
When people claim that leaks “get people killed,” they’re referring to when undercover agents are identified while they’re in the field. The only secrets exposed in these leaks are the computer hacking techniques used by the US to spy remotely through compromised devices.
You could maybe say that closing off those surveillance channels prevented the CIA from learning about some attack, but that’s really tenuous. It also assumes that the CIA isn’t constantly developing new zero-day exploits so that they can continue to spy on just about everyone on the planet.
Did Edward Snowden kill people too?
The class of information that Snowden had was substantially more dangerous. He didn’t just walk out of there with Prism secrets.
There’s a reasonable chance that some of the data Snowden had would have had more dire impacts on remote agents.
we will know more when he goes to trial
Why should he go to trial? It’s not going to be a fair trial, and the people have a right to know that the US government is illegally surveilling them. If he truly did directly kill people as a result of his leak, there would already be preliminary evidence.
Right up with you until preliminary evidence.
If they publicly released that his leak got someone in particular killed, they would be admitting publicly that the person killed was an agent. In most cases they would not want to tip their hand on that for fear of exposing other agents.