Jury finds former CIA programmer guilty of leaking CIA hacking materials | Hacker News Reader

Jury finds former CIA programmer guilty of leaking CIA hacking materials

thedissenter.org

220 pointsTrouble_007216 comments

> But US prosecutors never presented any forensic evidence to specifically tie Schulte to the publication of the CIA hacking materials on WikiLeaks.

Makes you wonder how he was found guilty. The accused have a big disadvantage at trial. He also represented himself (probably a huge mistake)

Maybe we'll find out how they got him in the next leak.

This was the third trial. The first two were declared mistrials. So yes, certainly makes one wonder.

Two mistrials? Sounds like justice /s

The government can do infinite retrials, starving you of resources to maintain adequate representation

I think we need greater protections against this

And the dual sovereignty loophole in our protection against double jeopardy should be addressed as well

No, they can't. If the defendant is acquitted, that's the end of the line (barring a few dual sovereignty loopholes, as you mentioned, but those also aren't limitless).

Only an acquittal, meaning the jury agreed that guilt was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. One mistrial makes sense. Perhaps there was someone with doubts, but those doubts were unreasonable. Or there was one person who believed the accused was guilty and that person was unreasonable. This could be fixed with a new jury.

After two mistrials (for failure to reach a consensus) it’d appear that reasonable minds may differ and the case must not have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

Often times, when a mistrial is declared and a retrial occurs, prosecutors will change strategy. Additionally, rulings from the previous trial are not automatically carried over, so suppressed evidence (for example) can be potentially displayed during a trial if the judge rules differently.

Another factor, which is more common in state courts, is the lesser charge consideration. Upon a retrial, the judge can instruct the jury to find a defendant guilty of a lesser crime in lieu of the originally charged crime. For example, manslaughter instead of murder.

Overall it’s obviously stacked against the defendant in federal court. Adding in unlimited retrials basically guarantees a defendant will be found guilty eventually.

Don't you just love how first you learn about the Bill of Rights, and then you learn that there's a bullshit loophole our judicial system uses to bypass every goddamn rule in the entire Bill of Rights?

I mean, there are a ton of problems with the criminal justice system, but white, well-off defendants who can afford non-court-appointed lawyers getting convicted after a single mistrial isn't really top of the list, is it?

I read https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-surreal-ca... and, well, this guy's not exactly a poster child for "the system is out to get you."

I think the "our system is rigged" argument is a bit more compelling when looking at, say, the mandatory minimum sentences for crack possession.

How on Earth is "other people have it worse" supposed to be some kind of counterargument?

No shit other people have it worse. I'd put Speedy and Public Trial and Due Process (Civil Asset Forfeiture) problems as the top of the list, with Double Jeopardy erosion a ways down. Mandatory minimums sound like they belong on the list too, but I'm not familiar enough to know exactly where to place them -- probably high on the list. In any case, one bad thing on a list certainly does not invalidate another bad thing on the list. That's an even more dogshit idea than the loopholes themselves.

> this guy's not exactly a poster child

Standing up for rights means standing up for bastards. Always has, always will, because that's when rights get tested.

Interestingly, the federalists tried to argue against the Bill of Rights by essentially saying if an individual right was not mentioned in the Bill of Rights than that omission could set a precedent that the individual did not have that right. Of course now we know that everything that isn’t explicitly protected has been taken from us so I guess it’s good they ultimately lost that debate.

On a somewhat positive note, there are things like the Speedy Trial Act that mandate charges be dismissed if a trial is not brought quickly enough. But it’s often not very effective because they are allowed to delay the trial basically indefinitely if the judge finds it is in the “ends of justice” to do so. There also have been major cases thrown out over Brady (evidence disclosure) violations recently which is a step in the right direction. I think defendants now probably have more rights than they ever did but the problem is that 1) there are way more laws to break today than ever before 2) federal prosecutors are less interested in the public good and more in their political ambitions and careers instead 3) good legal representation has become incredibly expensive.

Of course now we know that everything that isn’t explicitly protected has been taken from us so I guess it’s good they ultimately lost that debate.

And even the things that are explicitly protected are subject to the interpretation of the Constitution, via the ouija board that the Supreme Court uses to contact the "founders".

> Standing up for rights means standing up for bastards. Always has, always will, because that's when rights get tested.

What right of his do you think was violated?

How is this person's race relevant?

Also, if he represented himself, is he really a "well off defendant who can afford non-court-appointed lawyer"?

He had a lawyer in his first trial.

Race is, of course, relevant, since case outcomes dramatically differ by race.

The best part is magically none of these cases make it to the Supreme Court. We have had several decades of open and shut constitutional violations including mass warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention without trial, civil asset forfeiture, executive order overreach. No ruling on any of it.

The defense also gets to retool its strategy in light of the evidence. Defense also gets to make evidentiary motions. Retrials don't always favor the prosecution.

I think the most retrials I've seen (stemming from hung juries, not reversals) is the John Gotti Jr. case, where he got four mistrials. Prosecutors decided not to seek retrial after that.

If acquitted or convicted correct

But a hung jury can be retried infinitely

I think hung should be just as good as acquittal, or at least ONE other try or something different than potentially infinite retries until the prosecutor gets a tap on the shoulder to move on

Plenty of other countries allow conviction by simple or supermajorities.

I'm far from a punitive-justice kind of person, but arguing that a single dissenting juror should be sufficient to acquit strikes me as not at all obvious.

As long as I can convince one in twelve that I'm innocent, I should be considered innocent?

Having been on a jury in the US one time (attempted murder), the purpose of this system is probably not at all obvious. The idea is to put 12 people in a room and force them to agree to the same thing. You can deliberate almost any amount of time you want. If you try to tell the judge after a single day of delibrations that you are a hung jury, the judge will force you to stay longer. Only in extreme cases where the jury has been hung for a very long time does the judge allow a mistrial.

So the idea is to force 12 people to convince each other of one idea or the other.

In the final play of the Orestia trilogy by Aeschylus, the goddess Athena convenes a jury of twelve citizens to decide the guilt of Orestes in the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra.

The jury is evenly split, and Athena adds a final vote for innocence, calling it her precedent.

It is unfortunate that the United States did not follow this ancient judicial custom EDIT: to acquit if half the jury refuses to convict.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oresteia#The_Eumenides

(I live in a midsize U.S. town that happens to have the oldest community theater that performs Greek plays in mask every year.)

> It is unfortunate that the United States did not follow this ancient judicial custom.

Requiring a simple majority of the jury for a serious criminal conviction, but splitting ties for the defense, rather than the US practice of requiring a unanimous verdict for conviction?

>So the idea is to force 12 people to convince each other of one idea or the other.

You said nothing to contradict the GP. If someone is on trial, all they need is one of the twelve to not be convinced of guilt. Your phrasing of "force" that one person to change their mind is absolutely insane to me.

Well, I think the clarification is important. It's not like you just go for a vote, and if there's no consensus outcome, boom, mistrial.

Judges aim for consensus, and juries are intended to debate/discuss until they can reach it. So the complaint about "well, prosecutors can just keep trying" rings a little more hollow in that case.

(Again, there are a ton of other reasonable complaints--bullshit forensic "science", the fact that expert witnesses cost money that defendants don't have, mandatory minimum sentences, federal prosecutors' aversion to risking losses at trial, the awful penal system, etc. But this is a weird one to be hung up on, I think.)

Having been stuck on several courts-martial panels in the military as well as a civilian jury later for an assault trial, I found the military court system seemed, in many ways, more fair to the accused.

On the flip side, the verdict does not have to be unanimous.

To play devils advocate, if unanimity is required for guilt why doesn’t lack of unanimity mean innocence?

Sure, maybe. I guess you can argue two things:

1. That outcomes should be binary, i.e. "guilty" or "innocent" with no mistrials. 2. That outcomes should be decided by unanimous, supermajority, majority, or some other arrangements.

I don't think either of those arguments are especially fundamental. My point was only that it's a bit hyperbolic to view the whole hung jury rule as some sort of Bill of Rights violation.

The high bar for acquittal is what makes the hung jury rule look like a Double Jeopardy problem.

It gives too much power to one person. It only takes one hold out to hang a jury.

Just to clarify, in the US at least, juries don't determine innocence, but rather "not guilty", aka, inefficient evidence of guilt.

From cornell law website:

> A not guilty verdict does not mean that the defendant truly is innocent but rather that for legal purposes they will be found not guilty because the prosecution did not meet the burden.

Of course. I should have said "acquitted", as opposed to a hung jury.

As an interesting quirk, Scottish law has three verdicts: "guilty", "not guilty" and "not proven" where the latter is basically "we think you're guilty but the prosecution sucked so we have to let you go"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven

This turned out to be a big deal because of the trial of the Lockerbie bombers who blew up a Pan-Am flight over Scotland and were ultimately tried under Scots law. There was a real possibility that the bombers could have gone free with a "not proven" verdict.

While its true Megrahi and co were tried under Scottish law, it wasn't in a court room in Scotland. There are a number of features of how the Megrahi case was tried by Scottish judges in an area of the Netherlands on a US airforce base that was legally declared part of Scotland that are unusual, it was a very unique process that has never been repeated:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Court_in_the_Netherla...

> https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/apr/07/lockerbie

There are aspects of how that trial unfolded that have long been subject of concern even from victims families (Dr Jim Swire famously); politically a "not proven" verdict would have been so unpalatable I'm honestly not sure how much chance there ever was of that occurring - politics is how we ended up in the bizarre Scottish courtroom in the Netherlands situation in the first place. Even the way in which the judges deliberated is not standard for a typical High Court of Justiciary case in its normal home in Scotland.

This reminds me of video games where you can report players for "harassment", "cheating", and "low skill". "Low skill" reports go to /dev/null.

Moral of the story is: Sometimes you need to give people the button they really want to push, even if it does nothing.

This almost never happens. The jury basically has to not make up its mind for at least a week. (and the judge can keep it going as long as they want) Its almost never just 1 person either. But if one person is willing to hold their ground for a week it means there is something going on. Either that person is a committed ideological actor, saw something, or had some major bias. It takes an immense will to deal with 11 other people for a week straight who all want to go home and get back to their lives, usually if its just one person they give in after a few days to the social pressure. So if a jury hangs it usually points to more than 1 disagreeing. This is where we get into "compromise" verdicts, where maybe 1 person is being stubborn but will go along with the group if they are allowed to win on one point, which is why prosecution throws the kitchen sink at criminal defendants.

Who cares about statistics I saw it happen and finally the next presidential administration appointee hit up the prosecutor to stop on or after the third trial

>Either that person is a committed ideological actor, saw something, or had some major bias.

...Or they haven't been convinced beyond a reasonable doubt.

You realize as a juror, your job isn't to kowtow to the state. You're literally the last bulwark between said state and your fellow man. If anything, ypu need to be picking hard at any case you get presented, especially if it smells like a political/railroad case.

I would argue holding this stance makes you a committed ideological actor that would get struck during selection if found out.

Not saying i disagree with you....

>committed ideological actor

Implies "I made up my mind before going in."

I'm more "Convince me that this man is the only person who could possibly have done what you allege."

If they presented no compelling evidence that he did it, and as someone with technical understanding, I'd have questions to raise if things did not sufficiently add up.

Sorry, deliberations will continue until either the prosecution or these other jurors get with the program I'm not putting someone away while I entertain a reasonable doubt.

>But a hung jury can be retried infinitely

A hung jury is just one of the causes of a mistrial; and the net effect of a mistrial is that no verdict is reached. The common law has no prohibition on retrying a defendant after a mistrial.

well the argument is that if the state is so inconpetent that it keeps mistrying an individual, then that's potentially harrasment of an innosent person and can't be allowed

You get mistrials due to defendant counsel misconduct, or juror misconduct, too.

Given the role of a jury as ground truth to the legal system, it's rather dangerous to hold that a jury can "misbehave".

Jury nullification, as controversial as it is, is an important escape valve and check on the system. Prosecutors and judges just don't like it because it threatens stare decisis.

I think the point is, while there are limits, most of those will last longer than the resources anyone would have to defend themselves. It doesn't have to be limitless, only a bit longer than anyone can "survive".

This guy got a hung jury on his first trial with a public defender. The government was paying for his defense.

They can intentionally mess up the trial, or refuse to prosecute. There are people who get swept up in some old but reopened case investigation launched by a DA that wants to look tough. Trail might have died 10 years ago with essentially an acquittal, but it can be set up so it can be reopened at any point.

I think judges are allowed to dismiss cases "with prejudice" (i.e. not allow for a retrial), and I feel like this _should_ be done if the prosecution purposely punts to try again later, but I'm not sure how often this happens in practice

"The government can do infinite retrials, starving you of resources to maintain adequate representation"

I remember reading about a guy who had 5 or 6 trials for murder. The prosecutor just kept trying.

You would have to give more details, because in general, that's the very definition of double jeopardy.

Was it five or six hung juries?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Flowers is one example.

Convicted four times, but with conviction overturned on appeal (including one time to the Supreme Court), plus two mistrials. The new DA declined to seek a seventh trial.

Ah, that makes more sense. It isn't double-jeopardy when a conviction is remanded for re-trial (although why it's not is unclear to me in a common-sense sense).

You usually cannot appeal simply on the basis that you believe the jury made the wrong decision, i.e. on the basis of an error of fact.

There has to be an error of law (e.g. the judge have a wrong jury instruction, or evidence was inappropriately allowed/excluded, or the trial was allowed to continue when a mistrial should have been declared) or other constitutional basis, like ineffective counsel.

In some cases, appeal courts will decide that there could be no basis for conviction once the flaw is corrected (in which case a conviction can be reversed), but oftentimes the appropriate outcome is to remand the case back to the lower court for retrial.

It was Gotti, leader of one of the mafia families in NYC.

The article claims that this was the second trial, not his third. He was convicted on some counts in his first trial, but the jury was hung on the Espionage Act charges:

> This was the second trial against Schulte. In March 2020, his first trial ended in a mistrial on several Espionage Act charges, but he was found guilty of contempt of court and lying to the FBI.

You are correct, there were two trials. In the first, the jury convicted him of 1) contempt of court and 2) making false statements to the FBI.

> In March 9, 2020, after hearing four weeks of testimony and deliberating for six days, the jury convicted Schulte on two counts: contempt of court and making false statements to the FBI. However, jurors were deadlocked on eight other counts, including the most serious of illegal gathering and transmission of national defense information. Although the judge declared a mistrial, the government chose to retry the case.

So your credentials to access an internal repo at the CIA's office does not count as evidence enough ?

I would hope not. Just because I have a key to unlock a door does not mean that I did unlock the door. It just means when the door is unlocked, I'm one of the people that gets called in to discuss if I had done it or not.

It's a key he wasn't supposed to have in a high-security environment, and it was used to download the exact data that appeared on WikiLeaks. It's a little bit more than "just happens to have the key".

If I was going to exfiltrate classified data, I'm not sure whose credentials I would use but I am 100% sure they wouldn't be mine.

Why do you need to show that he uploaded information to Wikileaks?

All they need to show is that he had unauthorized access to the information and downloaded that information.

I guess some charges only kick in if the information is redistributed.

why do I need to prove you stabbed someone.

All I need to show is that you have a kitchen knife

Not a great comparison. There's a reason why whistleblowers are encouraged to only share information that they already have access to in their day to day.

Juries are notoriously 50/50 outcome regardless of what went on during trial. He should have picked bench trial.

Here’s a good article about him: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-surreal-ca...

I find interesting that 'they' feel the need to do a character assination on the man (where they being the people who are the source for this and similar articles, I guess his former employer).

The original article says:

"But US prosecutors never presented any forensic evidence to specifically tie Schulte to the publication of the CIA hacking materials on WikiLeaks."

Maybe the issue here is that the case isn't that strong after all.

>Maybe the issue here is that the case isn't that strong after all.

It doesn't need to be. It just needs to be someone. Imagine you're the head of a department and everyone up to the president is breathing down your neck about how this data made it out of your supposedly air-gapped system. Do you simply blame it on the Russians or Chinese, essentially admitting that a foreign intelligence service was able to walk past your security with all that confidential data? Or do you pick the weakest link among your own? Someone who will soothe superiors, can't really stand up for himself and will absorb all the blame?

Tell them the best thing we can do is prevent it from happening again by auditing systems and adding safeguards.

The New Yorker story suggests there was some digital evidence, not of upload to wikileaks but of unauthorised access and download:

And, on the sixth day of the trial, prosecutors laid out what they regarded as a coup de grâce—the digital equivalent of fingerprints at a crime scene. Even after Schulte was stripped of his administrative privileges, he had secretly retained the ability to access the O.S.B. network through a back door, by using a special key that he had set up. The password was KingJosh3000. The government contended that on April 20, 2016, Schulte had used his key to enter the system. The files were backed up every day, and while he was logged on Schulte accessed one particular backup—not from that day but from six weeks earlier, on March 3rd. The O.S.B. files released by WikiLeaks were identical to the backup from March 3, 2016. As Denton told the jurors, it was the “exact backup, the exact secrets, put out by WikiLeaks.”

Ahh.

The password was 'KingJosh3000'.

That is just the password some professional working in IT-security and cutting edge hacking would pick ... in particular if they were about to commit treason by leaking states secrets.

If you think the Government created this back door to frame him why would they choose that password?

contains his name, lines up with their descriptions of him as a deranged narcissist. it honestly does seem a little pat

It lines up with his history as a deranged narcissist.

> In a 2009 exchange... one person Schulte interacted with went by “hbp.” Another went by “Sturm.” Josh’s username was “Josh.” At one point, he volunteered to grant his new friends access to the child-porn archive on his server. He had titled it /home/josh/http/porn. Sturm, taken aback, warned Schulte to “rename these things for god’s sake.”

Also how do they know the password at all? Is the CIA storing passwords for classified material in plain text?

its (allegedly) his backdoor, nit the CIA's

Sounds like exactly the kind of password an emotionally immature junior employee subject to poor judgment would pick, though.

Whether that's a fair description here, I can't say--but the New Yorker story is certainly internally consistent (and, it must be said, doesn't exactly make the CIA look good, either).

I bet it was a co worker who wanted to leak but also didn't want to be blamed. Or maybe even a coworker who had a grudge against the defendant and didn't care about the leaks at all.

It would be pretty easy to set up. If you work in the same room or building as a coworker how hard is it to set up a camera or a physical key logger to steal their password? Once you have someone's username and password you can make it look like they did anything. You could even do something nefarious on their computer when they went home for the evening.

You may think that as security professionals they would definitely notice a key logger, but do you honestly think _anyone_ checks the back of their computer every time they come back from a lunch break?

Right? From the article it sounded like Amol had motive, got revenge by framing Josh. Who knows.

>"But US prosecutors never presented any forensic evidence to specifically tie Schulte to the publication of the CIA hacking materials on WikiLeaks."

I mean, getting into forensic evidence of what he did at the CIA would likely require exposing top secret classified material in a court room. Suffice to say, prosecutors generally can't do this except as a last resort.

When the guy left his phone full of passwords, and his computer full of encrypted child sex assault material, I'm not so sure the prosecutor feels the need to burn CIA secrets in court anymore.

"Sprinkle some crack on him Johnson" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ESzLDC4B14

A CIA hacker "left his phone full of passwords, and his computer full of encrypted child sex assault material".

This doesn't sound weird to you?

Not really, opsec is a fascinating thing but in my personal experience very very few people, even trained professionals, actually go through the hassle of rigorous opsec for their personal projects and lives. The idea that a CIA hacker didn't follow rigorous opsec is about as believable as the idea that the NSA left their hacking tools publically available https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/nsa-hacking-tool-exploits....

Although, based on the strength of the assumption that it must be planted, I would say that working for the CIA would be a strong cover for a pedophile, since it's apparently impossible in the public eye for someone there to authentically trade in CSAM

Does it seem plausible that someone would be that stupid? Sure. Is it convenient for the CIA to attack this person's character? Also reasonable.

> I find interesting that 'they' feel the need to do a character assination on the man

That's par for the course for the mainstream US (and Western, more generally, I would say) media nowadays. It wasn't always like that, but the last few years and especially the current war against Russia have accelerated this trend.

War against Russia? I'm not aware the US or EU declared war against Russia

USA didn't declare war against DPRK, Vietnam, Iraq, etc. That's not something we do. However, "serious politicians" have "mistakenly" mentioned that we're at war with Russia for months.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/ukraine-nato-rus...

Just to mention, Russia invaded Ukraine and never declared it war. Russians are also comiting genocide in Ukraine. Russians call it special operation, it is illegal to call it war in Russia.

USA offered to fly Ukrainian president to safety. Ukrainian president refused and Ukrainian army started to fight. USA did very decent thing after - supported Ukrainian army with guns.

Not a single American Army soldier fought.

> Just to mention, Russia invaded Ukraine and never declared it war.

So you agree with jessaustin?

jessaustin makes implications rather then clear statements. I dont think Ukraine situation is in any way similar to Vietnam or Iraq. And it is not case of American aggression at all.

No, USA is not in war with Ukraine or Russia. Ukraine is in war with Russia. USA supports Ukraine. Russia does see west in general as ennemies, does actively work to undermine democracy and stability of western countries. Consequently, Ukraine is not just defending itself, but also defending everyone further west.

Is that enough answer?

--------------

Edit: looking at other comments jessaustin is trying to revert aggressor and victim. Or rather, invent new aggressor, ignore victim interests entirely and make actual aggressor look innocent.

Yes, but in all those instances the US sent troops there with weapons and they fired those weapons at the other side, which is how most people visualize "war". That's not what is happening here. We're sending weapons and money, not men. It would be like saying America entered WWII when they signed the Lend-Lease act, not after Pearl Harbor.

USA military and CIA had been present in Korea and Vietnam for years, with little fanfare, before those wars really got going. Their roles in Laos, Indonesia, Iran, Nicaragua, etc. were never acknowledged. They are currently present though unacknowledged in dozens of nations, with the hopes of kicking off future wars for the profit of armaments manufacturers. USA "special forces" have been embedded with various more-or-less-official military units in Donbas for years, during which time UN estimates that 14,000 people died in violent military action including more than 3,000 civilians. Over the same time, various American and western European neo-nazis also found their way to Donbas, forming a convenient cover for the "operators".

Americans have been in Ukraine for a long time, and that's not even to mention e.g. Victoria Nuland. This is a stupid argument anyway. Congress has committed to spending Russia's entire annual military budget to fill Ukraine with deadly weapons. That doesn't count the billions we already spent over the last 15 years. A president was impeached because he proposed (without actually doing) a temporary slowdown of the flow of American weapons to Ukraine. Our masters wanted a war, and now they have what they wanted. Very few mammalian Americans want a war, but after twenty years of stupid wars it's clear that the peace we want doesn't matter.

> Our masters wanted a war, and now they have what they wanted.

How does sending weapons to a country encourage another country to attack it? Wouldn't it decrease the chances they attacked it - since it is fairly clear that the Ukraine could not invade Russia.

> Very few mammalian Americans want a war

As opposed to reptilian Americans? I'm just joking, I assume this is a typo but I can't figure out what it is meant to be.

Do Americans actually want peace between the Ukraine and Russia(if it would just mean acceding to Russia's demands)? Granted I live in a fairly liberal area, but I see blue and yellow flags all over the place right now.

Just “Ukraine”, no “The” necessary or desired before it.

How would we feel about Chinese weapons located in Tijuana? Even if they couldn't threaten a takeover of USA, they could still level Los Angeles with five minutes' notice. Eastern Ukraine similarly threatens Moscow.

Americans where I live couldn't care less what happens in Ukraine. I have never seen a Ukrainian flag in the flesh, although they're on TV incessantly. If I drive around the area, I see USA flags, some state flags, a lot of confederate flags, and even a few "Brandon" flags. My own hope for Ukraine is peace at any cost. This isn't some glorious republic; it has consistently led Europe in the "most corrupt" lists and the history it chooses to emphasize features Nazi collaboration. Split it up into a part that can get along with Russia and a part that will eventually be absorbed by Poland. It will be a win for the West if the latter part contains Odessa.

So it’s USA’s fault that Russia became a fascist country and decided to invade?

I'll take the two questions in reverse order. Russia has invaded Ukraine in order to protect Russian interests. You could pick 100 Russian politicians at random, and every one of them would do as Putin is doing, if they were put in his position. The lives of the people of Russia are threatened by NATO armaments in Ukraine. Then-ambassador-to-Russia and current CIA director Burns said as much in 2008. [0] It's even more true since USA orchestrated the removal of the elected leader of Ukraine in 2014. [1] It's more true yet since USA has supported the Nazi brigades who have killed civilians in Donbas ever since, [2][3] while slowly inserting more and more weapons and "advisors". [4] If Ukraine had sought peace with Russia, as the majority of Ukrainians would have chosen to do (this was Zelensky's primary, if Wilsonian, campaign promise when he won election) [5], this invasion probably would not have happened. So, yes, there are people associated with USA who bear a large portion of blame for the invasion.

I'm not sure if I would consider Russia "fascist". Certainly it is no longer communist. If it is fascist for the sake of discussion, we can blame Putin for that. And, indeed, we can certainly blame USA for Putin. We intervened on Yeltsin's behalf when Russia naturally would have gone in a more socialist direction. [6] The inevitable result of that was that his right-hand, Putin, soon took over. [7] I think at one time Putin would have considered a sort of peace with the West, if we had made that more practical than the alternative. Alas, we did not.

[0] https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html

[1] https://www.wsws.org/en/topics/event/2014-coup-ukraine

[2] https://www.salon.com/2022/03/10/are-there-really-neo-nazis-...

[3] https://press.un.org/en/2018/sc13560.doc.htm

[4] https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-could-soon-be-using-...

[5] https://thegrayzone.com/2022/04/28/zelensky-celebrity-populi...

[6] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/07/the-us-has...

[7] https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-s-a-solid-man-declassified-mem...

> Russia has invaded Ukraine in order to protect Russian interests.

Russia has literally stated that they don’t consider Ukraine a real country they invaded to try and take over the country. I guess given Russias history you could count that as “protecting Russias interests”.

> The lives of the people of Russia are threatened by NATO armaments in Ukraine.

The only thing NATO armaments in Ukraine threatened is Russias ability to invade Ukraine. But once again I can see why given their history Russia might see a country being protected by others that they wish to subjugate and invade as a threat to themselves.

> It's more true yet since USA has supported the Nazi brigades who have killed civilians in Donbas ever since,

Your links literally don’t say this they mention the Azov and children dying separately.

> If Ukraine had sought peace with Russia, as the majority of Ukrainians would have chosen to do (this was Zelensky's primary, if Wilsonian, campaign promise when he won election) [5], this invasion probably would not have happened. So, yes, there are people associated with USA who bear a large portion of blame for the invasion.

Ukraine already had a promise from Russia to not invade or threaten its borders when it gave up its nuclear weapons. Look how much good that did, Russia doesn’t understand peace agreements only weapons. Any “peace agreement” with Russia just means they’ll invade on the future when they aren’t happy.

Let’s be clear, the only people to blame for this war are Russia, they decided to invade and they can leave at any point.

And if you want to talk about Nazis maybe you should think about which side is raping civilians, performing mass executions of civilians and running “filtration camps”.

The Russians are literally committing genocide in Ukraine, there’s only one side that’s the fascists here and that’s Russia.

Every serious person acknowledges that what's going on in Ukraine is a NATO proxy war.

Here's Leon Panetta (former Def Sec and CIA Director) saying it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWu7cPPVv0

Of course it is - but it’s a defensive proxy war. The aggressor is Russia, not NATO.

I don't understand this perennial thread of "No one declared it, it's not a war" when armies are trying their hardest to exterminate each other. What makes the magic words "i declare war" by some old buffoon who just wants the children of his nation to die in cruel ways make a magical difference?

Seriously - if you look at pictures of the children dismembering each other in Ukraine during ww2 and the children dismembering each other in Ukraine in 2022, the only major differences are fashion and how effective technology lets them be at cruelty.

The legalistic bullshit of needing magic words sounds like something the monsters that want dead children say to each other to get a little distance from the fact that the dead children are still their fault.

I think that the commenter takes issue with the implications that USA is in war with Russia rather then Russia being in aggressive war against Ukraine.

It is popular framing among pro-russia people - trying to frame it as if Ukraine did not mattered at all. Or as if did not even existed.

„War against Russia” is a rather strange way to describe defense against Russian invasion.

I don’t know about how strong the case is, but the stories about his character makes sense in the context of someone who would leak that.

Notice who you call as ‘they’ didn’t portray him as a self-proclaimed idealist, but someone with an unstable personality and who weaponizes workplace bureaucracy for petty fights

We do know for a fact that he filed for a restraining order against his coworker, that seems extremely weird to me, and I don’t work for the CIA.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

Character assassination? He assassinated his own character. Character suicide.

He ran a child porn server:

> At one point, he volunteered to grant his new friends access to the child-porn archive on his server.

Sexually assaulted a passed-out roommate:

> When F.B.I. investigators searched Schulte’s phone, they found something especially alarming: a photograph that looked as though it had been taken inside the house in Sterling, Virginia, where he had lived while working for the C.I.A. The photograph was of a woman who looked like she was passed out on the bathroom floor. Her underwear appeared to have been removed and the hand of an unseen person was touching her genitals. State investigators in Loudoun County subsequently identified the woman and interviewed her. She has not been publicly named, but she told them that she had been Schulte’s roommate and had passed out one night, with no memory of what had happened. The encounter in the photograph was not consensual, she assured them.

Is there an enemy of the CIA who isn’t a pedo or rapist?

Sure. But pedophilia is probably comorbid with psychological problems which lead people to believe they are in some kind of battle with the CIA, so one might expect it to appear a bit more commonly. No one's ever accused Jeffrey Sterling of being a pedo or rapist.

In UK we sent over 100 people to jail because software was buggy, said they stole money, a private company knew about the problem but lied under oath and nobody checked.

the chance that anyone would ever discover that someafiles were planted by an arm of the state seems to be zero.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

You've avoided saying it directly, but the oblique claim in your post is that (1) the CIA is the New Yorker's source for the claims in the article, and (2) the New Yorker acceeded to an intentional character assassination.

These are extraordinary claims, ones that you haven't presented correspondingly extraordinary evidence for.

Interesting this guy called for Chelsea manning to be executed on Twitter. Wonder if he will keep up that consistency during sentencing.

He still claims innocence, so I doubt he thinks he deserves the same punishment.

While he may not be executed, its a lot more serious than Mannings leak. It is far more damaging from the hacking tools he released. He's also going to become an example so they will make he sentencing more harsh.

My estimate is 40 years minimum. No parole.

I think you're forgetting that Manning got a 35 year sentence, 40 isn't much more severe.

This is also one of the best reads of the year.

One of the guy's nicknames at work was "the nuclear option"...

And don't forget the child pornography charges.

My favorite part was how insanely petty the whole thing sounded... How he insisted his nickname should be "Badass" but people called him what you mentioned as well as "Voldemort" more often than his self appointed nickname... What a goof. If this article is accurate it paints a picture of an incredibly socially immature workplace where people who didn't advance past the point of high school in that aspect left the guy feeling bullied enough that he did the leak. This was something like my first and only experience doing government contracting at a large corporation, on my tour of the offices one of the things I pointed out to my boss were these print out clip art stop signs that said "STOP BULLYING" on the walls everywhere and that I hadn't seen something like that since high school. He rolled his eyes pretty hard at that one but these people were responsible for systems that enormous amounts of people's lives depended on. I remember when these systems failed multiple times over multiple incidences and just thought of the stop sign shit.

Hah. I was deeply struck by how immature the whole thing sounds.

Nobody here looks good, of course. But even top flight tech companies have this sort of time-wasting, so it's not exactly a surprise you'd find it at a TLA as well.

I got reprimanded one time at a previous job for pretending to throw a bee at my supervisor. A nest had formed in some concrete overhang in the building, he freaked out and got adrenaline ampules at the pharmacy (epipen shortage year) like "you need to inject me with this if I get stung". So later on, I walked up to him sitting next to a coworker with nothing in my hands and a shit eating grin on my face. "What's that?" "A BEE!" as I opened my hands with nothing in them... He fell over in his chair and everyone in the office stood up and pointed and laughed at him. It was ultra funny though he insisted I was insane for this and demanded I see a psychiatrist if I wanted to keep my job. Just ended up getting xanax pills I really didn't want or need. This was close to a decade ago and I wouldn't pull something like that now, but I mean what do you expect out of hiring people in their early 20s?

I certainly wouldn't expect this from any of my coworker in their early 20s. This is bullying. I would have reported a coworker to HR for this.

I don't think we have those departments where I live except in American or Euro companies that do outsourcing, nor any "STOP BULLYING" signs around the office in this neck of the woods.

I would imagine they would be fired too.

Look, I don't want to come off as judgemental, but it really wasn't funny. He was genuinely afraid of bees, perhaps bordering on a phobia. Whether that's a "rational" fear or not isn't important (although the epipen/adrenaline makes it sound like it's quite rational; people can die from bee strings), people have all kinds of fears and they almost never find practical jokes about them "funny". Even worse, you put him in the extremely uncomfortable and embarrassing situation where the entire office was laughing at him over it. It sounds like an absolutely horrible situation for him.

"What do you expect out of hiring people in their early 20s?" is a lame excuse. A 11-year old? Sure. A 21-year old should know better. We all make errors in judgement, but this really was a spectacular error, and some "official" response was entirely warranted.

That's funny, pretty much everyone else thinking him demanding someone see a psychiatrist over a prank thought his response was a bit over-wrought, especially the psychiatrist

Guess we come from extremely different cultures

That was certainly an odd response, yeah.

Discussed here:

A CIA hacker’s revenge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31639354 - June 2022 (252 comments)

I find the US government guilty of making secret malware that was deployed against both US citizens and friendly allies.

What Julian Assange is teaching us is that the intelligence and military apparatus can do whatever they want, but exposing them is a serious crime worthy of life in prison.

What is the Calyx Institute's interest in providing trial transcripts here? That's an interesting service: https://calyxinstitute.org/schulte

Access to trial transcripts in many jurisdictions is often behind complex paywalls/distribution agreements or some really archaic time consuming process to get official copies. It's not unheard of for an interest group to reshare these materials relevant to their objectives.

Its similar to the situation with scientific papers and the sci-hub site trying to remove blockers to access; people have tried before to make sci-hub clones for trial transcripts/court decisions/published legislation but there is huge money in this industry for companies like LexisNexis etc who often litigate to shut them down. Legal firms who need access to these details just see deals with companies like LexisNexis as standard cost of doing legal business - much like you might need a github account for every software engineer, lawyers will usually need individual accounts for services like LexisNexis to get latest court decisions and legislation.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/07/14/how-josh-schulte-got-j...

There is a lot here, and I think people should avoid leaping to conclusions.

That builds up to a conclusion that this guy is the sort of super-hacker you see in the movies. I don't believe he was stupid/clever enough to infect the trial judge's computer with a virus.

Based on what I've read, I can see him thinking he's clever enough, and he certainly has some amount of stupidity about him (being smart and stupid are not mutually exclusive).

Recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32089814

This article seems to use quotes and then provide no context for them which makes for confusing reading:

>Assistant US Attorney Michael D. Lockard asserted that on April 20, 2016, Schulte “stole the entirety of the CIA’s highly sensitive cyber intelligence capabilities.” This occurred just days after the CIA “locked the defendant out of the secure restricted vault-like location on the network.”

So is the prosecution asserting that he hacked into the network after having his access revoked? In the next article the article states:

>“Shortly after stealing this extraordinarily sensitive intelligence information, the defendant transmitted those backups to WikiLeaks, knowing full well that WikiLeaks would put it up on the internet,” Lockard argued.

Is the assertion here that the dump obtained via a local backup this the defendant made? This is really kind of a poorly written article.

Off topic: Anybody else get a weird optic movement effect looking at the picture of the courthouse in the article?

yes

The entire ledge/cornice above "United States Court House" is dancing.

... but finds CIA innocent of hacking

Because it's their job?

That doesn't matter. Drug dealers, hitmen, prostitutes, etc. go to jail all the time even though its their job.

All those ppl you listed serve themselves, not the state. can't believe i have to spell this out on HN.

So same as the CIA then.

Remember when the CIA was trafficking cocaine?

So.. same thing?

Drug dealers do it for themselves, and the CIA - who were they dealing drugs for again? The state? They were giving the proceeds of crime back to the US government?

CIA isn't putting out diss tracks or toting guns wearing baklavas

lol are you sure about that?

I mean.. I could have just said nazi soldiers but I thought it was too cliche.

Just wait until you hit your 30s or so, you'll understand.

I'm in my 30s, so explain to me why supporting drug traffickers is better when the CIA does it.

Ah, I see. Put on that Anonymous mask, vote for Sanders, and change the world then.

When are the cops gonna be charged with kidnapping drunk drivers?

A great read!

https://github.com/sterling0x1/CIA-Hacking-Tools

tl;dr they use a lot of RATs and also do a lot of supply chain intercepts on hardware before it arrives to their targets. They will insert malicious hardware like charging cables or adapters or actually infect the HDD or phone with a backdoor.

Quote: "Schulte is now confined at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. He has several child pornography charges pending against him that stem from the FBI raid on his Manhattan apartment on March 15, 2017."

Now that's just textbook setting up a patsy. If I had any doubt that the guy is innocent this one cleared that for me. I mean, at this moment, this is plain obvious it's just a CIA setup getting rid of a "no" man. They need them spineless, not actual thinkers.

> If I had any doubt that the guy is innocent this one cleared that for me

The Bayesian needle suddenly swings with force.

If he's guilty this is a more or less normal process. The real shocker is the stuff surrounding the leak in the article:

It was one of the largest leaks of information in the history of CIA and a huge embarrassment for then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who responded by labeling WikiLeaks a "non-state hostile intelligence agency" and developing "secret war plans" against the media organization that included kidnapping or even killing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Just so we are clear: if you are a member of an org, anywhere in the world, with no particular obligation to keep the CIA's secrets, but who's only mission is to make public CIA actions / capabilities, they may try to extra-judicially murder you.

Real are we the baddies? vibes. If you work there, or for them as a contractor, please consider putting your abilities to more ethical use.

This seems entirely in line with what I've read about the history of the CIA.

I do respect a good "Are we the baddies?" reference :-)

https://youtu.be/hn1VxaMEjRU

We shall always ask this ourselves.

Before, during and after an argument. Before, during and after a conflict.

> Are we the baddies?

Well, the history of the CIA is clear. But that's not the point.

This whole story is about failed management of a deranged employee. The lesson for employers is to stop toxic antics and attitudes. You don't need to be "woke" to know that when employees are insulting and bullying one another, it will in time destroy a project and maybe even ruin lives.

> This whole story is about failed management of a deranged employee

I thought this as just par for the course with the CIA.

Ha!

Deranged management of failure may also explain a few things.

I agree with your comment. Though there’s enough people here and elsewhere dying on the hill for the CIA that even their history isn’t clear. Like seeing all the coups as unselfish acts of bringing freedom to the disenfranchised global south.

Nice bio too

It is just developing plans, which is not as bad as developing the plan and carrying it out like the Saudis.

The plans you hear of, those are the failures.

A well-executed assassination is one that is never linked back to them.

This person gets it.

Julian Assange was not murdered, but we're hearing about it.

Yes, that's a double failure. And it will be triple when he's locked away - the US will suffer a reputational hit as big as (or even bigger than) the one it suffered from the material that him and Chelsea Manning surfaced.

Doubt it.

Assange is a bad faith actor that has shown that he has no problem kissing Russian boots to attack the US.

With Russia's invasion and desire to genocide Ukraine, associations with Russia are looked upon much less kindly.

He's still effectively a journalist being thrown in jail for doing journalism. From Europe, even given all that's going on, the optics are terrible.

Guilt by association is a terrible mindset.

What do you mean?

WikiLeaks has intentionally not published documents damaging to the Russian govt

Uh...and? That has no bearing on the fact that Russia -- not Wikileaks -- is responsible for "Russia's invasion and desire to genocide Ukraine". I may not like Wikileaks a lot but I won't blame them for invasions and genocides.

Furthering Russia's interests over the past few years does not make them culpable for Russia's invasion but it does show that they are more allied with Russian interests than the US's

>WikiLeaks has intentionally not published documents damaging to the Russian govt

For the reason that they thought those documents had already been published elsewhere. And a lot of the documents had been, though there were some new ones. Oddly, the leaked chat never mentions that to Wikileaks. It instead apparently assumed an organization with no Russian speakers and it's leader essentially imprisoned must have fully vetted all the documents.

Since when has wikileaks fully vetted any document?

Since around halfway through the Diplomatic Cables, when the Guardian published the encryption key while they were meticulously going through the documents. Shortly after Assange was basically imprisoned, making it very difficult for him to do anything of the sort.

edit I really shouldn't answer in good faith when you completely ignored my point to make a cheap attack.

Well, you can still hear of it -- JFK and Shinzo Abe spring to mind -- but yes, the "never linked back" part is key.

What would be the point of killing Abe after he's already out of office?

Perhaps threat messaging to current leaders who feel safe and protected by the spotlight of political coverage. It would have to be paired with additional messaging to indicate the bad actors demands but I imagine most politicians anticipate and hope for life after office.

In many countries, the preparation of many serious crimes, (murder included) is criminal on its own.

I was being sarcastic to juxtapose the public reaction of Saudis or MBS murdering Kashoggi (which is horrible no doubt) to the US planning basically the same thing.

Or Russia in UK and elsewhere.

Just so we are clear: if you are anywhere in the world, they may try to extra-judicially murder you.

All the extra words were surplus to requirements.

Accidentally, today an "are we the baddies?" post was also discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32105908

Wow that thread is a dumpster fire with showdead on.

Well it's... information warfare. People live and die based on what intel these agencies can keep and lose. I'm not saying they should have murdered him, but I'm unsurprised that they considered it as an option.

I think the article is being deliberately misleading. Assange is still only charged with the Cablegate leak, not this one. And if his extradition is ever served he may fave additional charges for his relationships with GRU and Roger Stone.

>If you work there, or for them as a contractor, please consider putting your abilities to more ethical use.

Yes, we need more of the best and brightest to be contributing to addictive social media apps and algorithms to subvert artificial quirks in financial systems.

Nah instead, we need to contribute to the organization that's committed some of the worst atrocities against US citizens and gets away with it.

And we get off easy compared to the rest of the world.

There are so many other things to do in between. And it is really sad your snarky and fallacious comment doesn't reflect that

You should always be asking yourselves these questions, but I can't agree with the implications of no one should ever work for the CIA. Out of full disclosure, I have been a US Army officer and have also done technical contracting work for IC agencies (not the CIA, purely collection-tasked agencies that didn't perform any kind of field ops). So take from that what you will. Maybe I'm just a bootlicker that doesn't want to think of myself as evil.

But I'm well aware that the military and intelligence services of the US have done some evil things. As far as I can tell, every military and intelligence service has done evil things, and maybe in some idealized world, that means these services shouldn't exist, but right now, as a purely practical matter, if every American simply refused to ever join the military or work for an intelligence service (as opposed to objecting to and refusing to obey illegal orders), we would just not have a military or any intelligence services. But doing that would not get rid of the others. We'd just be abdicating the global stage to China. Personally, I don't believe that would make the world better than it is now.

Is the choice between having no intelligence service at all, and one that consists of warmongering, drug-running, black site torturing, extrajudicial assassinating, media infiltrating, Epstein exonerators?

Is that the only way to maintain a presence on the "global stage"? Are we in a stronger position for having spent trillions to replace the Taliban with... the Taliban? Was Vietnam smart? Was all that murder in South America for corporate profits justifiable?

> Maybe I'm just a bootlicker that doesn't want to think of myself as evil.

I hope you really ask yourself that.

Of course not. It's a false dichotomy. And I don't know why anyone would want the US government in its current incarnation "on the global stage."

Problem is not that some people do bad things; problem is that Americans who do evil things go unpunished. It wouldn’t look so bad if you weren’t so fixed at protecting your war criminals from justice.

Also funny that you mention China, a country with incomparably better track record when it comes to foreign policy.

If preventing future leaks by any means would ensure security for you, your country, and your future generations, would you do whatever it took to make sure it never happened again? I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with it, I'm just saying people that have a knee-jerk reaction to casting a negative perspective on something because "CIA bad" never seem to think what might the world look like without these agencies. I also certainly don't think we're getting the full picture of what transpired from just that quote.

Yeah, I wonder, what the world would look like without destabilizing most of South America and Middle East.

> he had told the jury the “lack of evidence is not evidence of innocence.”

Wait, what? Since when in the US legal system did the defendant need to prove "evidence of innocence"? I am really getting tired of hearing BS like this from the prosecution team on high-profile cases! If they are pulling this crap when everyone is watching, what chance do any of us normal folks have at getting a fair shake from the Justice system if we ever end up in the defendant's chair?

It's the CIA, they can basically whatever the fuck they want, with little regard for law or justice.

If you like that one, wait until you hear what's in store for Julian Assange.

> There was scant coverage of both trials from the US news media

And yet there were days of trial coverage for an actor and his actress ex.

And again another one gets hot with a CP charge that nobody questions after a character assassination... Something KGB about all that imo.

Indeed.

“lack of evidence is not evidence of innocence.”

Wow.

CP is the nuclear weapon of the Internet that nobody questions when it shows up on someone's devices. It's radioactive; anybody that comes in contact with it immediately gets slammed. Absolute guarantee Assange is going to get hit with a CP charge to socially discredit him when they get a hold of him too.

I'm surprised they're dragging his situation out so much, I think the intent now is that he's the living example if how they will screw with you if you seriously step out of line even for the right reasons. That, or he will learn to love the party and accept we were always at war...

They are grinding him through the bureaucracy as much as possible until he eventually runs out of time and dies.

> is going to get hit

I very clearly remember he got hit in that direction, almost immediately... And again the general reaction was "You must have a very diversified public, if you believe that boosts credit instead of doubts".

> about all that

? If your reference is to Yuri A, the "charge" is "mental illness".

After he was charged for child pornography, he called it a "a non-violent, victimless crime." So, even if it was planted… this guy is the worst.

Tell me again why we're the good guys?

History is written by the victors.

Because "we" aren't the CIA. Perhaps it's "they" as in. Are they the enemy of the people just like the KGB or GRU?

A very successful propaganda machine.

we keep the spice flowing

Because there are worse people trying to do worse harm than the US? The real world is a dog eat dog world and if you're not up to snuff, there will always be someone else trying to eat your lunch.

Hmm. I’d better steal that guy’s lunch before some meaner kid does it.

Define "we" and define "good", be as exhaustive and precise as philosophically possible.

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