A New York court has concluded that the Spanish company UC Global SL and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) violated the rights and privacy rights of North American citizens who visited Julian Assange during his stay at the Ecuadorian embassy in London , which is guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
Four North American citizens, two lawyers and two journalists, sued Mike Pompeo, the former director of the CIA, and David Morales, the former Spanish military owner of the espionage company based in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz). security in the diplomatic mission.
Judge John G. Koeltl issued an order recognizing the violation of the plaintiffs' rights when UC Global SL employees took their cell phones and photographed their passwords and contents, practices he considers illegal. On the other hand, microphone recordings of their conversations in the embassy and photos of their passports are not illegal under this resolution. And he argues that “there is no expectation of privacy (from the plaintiffs) in this message” because it is a public place.
The ruling represents a victory for the plaintiffs and a problem for the North American Central Intelligence Agency, which will now demand disclosure (declassification) of the CIA operation. And the judge must approve it, according to legal sources. A secret mission whose details (audios, videos, emails and documents) were revealed through an investigation by EL PAÍS and whose evidence was presented to the New York judiciary by the four espionage victims.
The judge noted in his ruling that the plaintiffs had presented “sufficient evidence” that Morales acted as an agent or collaborator and followed the instructions of the CIA and its director Pompeo, former Secretary of State during the administration of Donald Trump (2017-2021 ), followed). . The decision rejects defendants' arguments to file the entire lawsuit.
The lawsuit against Mike Pompeo was filed in August 2021 by lawyers Margaret Ratner Kunstler and Deborah Hrbek and journalists John Goetz and Charles Glass, both specialists in national security issues. They all visited Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, as did hundreds of people and, according to the lawsuit, more than 100 North American citizens, including the Australian's lawyers and doctors, were spied on by the CIA during Pompeo's mandate. The New York judge includes in his ruling the former CIA director's statements in which he described the founder of WikiLeaks as a “target” of the agency and announced that he would launch a “long campaign” against his organization.
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The work of EL PAÍS revealed in 2019 that the company UC Global SL was spying for the United States, Assange's conversations with his lawyers and associates as they prepared their defense strategy against that country's extradition request for disclosing classified information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Weeks later, police arrested its owner and director, David Morales. The former soldier has now been provisionally released and the National Court is investigating him for alleged crimes against privacy and confidentiality of communications between lawyer and client, embezzlement, bribery and money laundering.
Microphones in bathrooms
The spying on Assange began in December 2017. Morales ordered his staff to install new video cameras with microphones in the embassy, as well as listening devices on the fire extinguishers and in the women's restroom where the men met. Lawyers are being spied on because of suspicion. The former Marine asked his technicians to provide the cameras with external streaming access (live broadcast) so that all footage could be accessed immediately from the United States. And it allowed three access channels “one for Ecuador, one for us and one for X,” according to emails sent to its employees. The system allowed Ecuadorian agents to ignore open access to American espionage.
The information collected from each visit Assange received was sent to a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server in Jerez de la Frontera. A Big Brother in which hundreds of profiles, reports of each visit, videos, audios, the mobile phones of visitors and their nationalities, professions: lawyers, diplomats, doctors, journalists, etc. have been computerized and archived. UC Global SL employees and several protected witnesses who testified in the trial claim that the CIA had access to this server and that Morales did not want to reveal the identities of “his American friends.” Folders with the name “CIA” were found on the ex-Marine’s laptop. The Spanish criminal police failed to make this determination during the judicial investigation led by Judge Santiago Pedraz.
The UC Global SL team. He, also on behalf of Morales, placed vibration-eliminating stickers on the windows of the rooms the Australian cyber activist visited to facilitate the recording of conversations from abroad using laser microphones allegedly used by the CIA.
The Australian cyber activist's espionage multiplied when suspicions arose that he wanted to leave the embassy in 2017 with Ecuadorian diplomatic status and go to Russia, something his lawyers and Assange deny. The final destination was Geneva (Switzerland). Among those being spied on in the embassy is Glenn Greenwald, the man who gave Edward Snowden insight into the massive espionage activities of the US secret service NSA. During his visit, the Russian visas in his passport and his cell phone were photographed.
Morales' clients included the late gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson, owner of Las Vegas Sands, friend of former President Trump and major Republican Party donor. The former military man himself ensured the safety of Adelson's yacht as it sailed through Mediterranean waters.
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