Accusations of espionage have been leveled against two former employees of Twitter and a third man from Saudi Arabia: Ali Alzabarah, Ahmad Abouammo, and Ahmed Almutairi have all been charged by the U.S for spying for the country.
They reportedly dug up private user data and gave it to Saudi officials in exchange for monetary compensation, as reported by the Department of Justice. Among the rewards given to the former employees, Alzabarah and Abouammo, was as an expensive watch, appraised to be worth around $35,000.
A complaint was filed against them last week on Wednesday, and Saudi Arabia has not yet publicly issued a response to the complaint. This puts Saudi Arabi in an uncomfortable spotlight, considering its close ties with President Donald Trump as a U.S. ally, despite its bad record with human rights. Just last year, there was the murder of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi—a critic of Saudi Arabia’s government. After walking into the country’s consulate in Istanbul, he was killed, and the exact nature of his death is still unclear. Moreover, the Saudi Arabian-led coalition, which is currently fighting a protracted war in Yemen, has not been taken lightly by lawmakers either. However, any resistance has not stopped the President from standing with Saudi Arabia and its Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who, reportedly, may have been involved with the charges.
These charges also jeopardize the image of Silicon Valley companies, questioning their ability to protect the privacy and intimate details they collect about their users, including protecting them from employees with no legitimate reason for accessing the information.
The complaint stated that Abouammo repeatedly accessed the Twitter account of two critics of the Saudi royal family. While Twitter discovered Alzabarah’s unauthorized access of personal data in late 2015 and placed him on administrative leave, they were too late, as he had reportedly already siphoned data from “over 6,000 accounts.”
Darlon Riviere - Staff Writer