San Francisco — While working on Twitter from 2013 to 2015, Ahmad Abouammo was responsible for helping celebrities, journalists and other celebrities in the Middle East promote their Twitter accounts. He processed Twitter’s coveted blue verification badge request and arranged a tour of the San Francisco headquarters.
However, the Justice Department says it abused access to Twitter user data, collected personal information about political opponents, and handed it over to Saudi Arabia in exchange for luxury watches and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Abu Ammo, who has been charged with wire fraud and money laundering on behalf of foreign powers in the United States, will be tried in federal court in San Francisco this week.
“We have proved Mr. Abu Ammo and look forward to spending the day in court,” said Angela Chuan, his leading lawyer. According to court filings, the government expects Mr Abuammo’s legal team to claim that he worked legally as a Saudi Arabian consultant. Mr Chuan refused to comment on his legal strategy.
The case, which demonstrates the Saudi Arabian government’s eagerness to seek information about critics, is unfolding at a subtle point in diplomacy between the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Last week, President Biden made his first visit to the kingdom, which once vowed to create a “Paria,” in hopes of securing closer ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel and helping out from rising gas prices. Did. Mr Biden met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, often known by his initials, MBS, and other Saudi officials. However, human rights activists have sharply criticized the visit, claiming that the president has accused the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi of being assassinated by Saudi operatives in 2018.
It’s also a tough moment for Twitter as the company faces close scrutiny of data security practices and engages in a high-stakes court battle with Elon Musk trying to withdraw from the deal to buy a social media company.
Twitter says Abouammo will restrict employee access to user data after leaving the company in 2015, but suffers from security issues. In 2020, hackers hijacked the accounts of well-known users, including Mr. Musk, to promote cryptocurrency scams.
In May, Twitter agreed to pay a $ 150 million fine to resolve a claim that misleaded users about the handling of personal data. Twitter told users that it was collecting email addresses and phone numbers to protect their accounts, but it also used information to help marketers target ads.
Abouammo was indicted in 2019 with another former Twitter employee, Ali Alzabarah. The Justice Department said the man used Twitter access to dig up information about thousands of users and shared that information with Ahmed Almutairi, who said he acted as an intermediary with Saudi Arabian authorities. Alm Tairi previously ran a social media marketing company that worked for the Saudi royal family.
The man “collected private user data such as device identifiers, phone numbers, and IP addresses, all of which are used by the Saudi government to identify and identify individuals behind accounts, including political opponents. It may have been done, “said the Legal Department. Submission to court.
According to the Justice Department, he fled to Saudi Arabia when Twitter management confronted Mr. Alzabara. He and Mr. Almutairi continue to be sought after by US law enforcement agencies. Abouammo, who worked for Amazon for a short time after leaving Twitter, was arrested in Seattle in 2019. He has no bail, but he traveled to the San Francisco Bay Area for trial.
In recent years, the Justice Department has cracked down on lobbyists and others who are working to promote the interests of foreign governments but have not disclosed it. For years, prosecutors have largely ignored such cases. From 1966 to 2015, the Ministry of Justice pursued only seven proceedings under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. The law requires lobbyists to disclose their work on behalf of foreign governments.
One of the 6,000 Twitter accounts that Alzabara was accused of seeing on behalf of Saudi officials in 2015 belonged to Khashoggi’s prominent dissident and confident Omar Abdulaziz. .. Abdulaziz sued Twitter for the breach. According to his lawyer and court records, the case is in mediation.
“The problem is bigger than Abu Ammo,” said Abdul Aziz’s lawyer, Venum Garagozuri. “The problem is systematic here. The problem is how the data was processed at the time.”
“Twitter’s information security practices have been rigorously audited by external auditors, as they have been since 2012,” said a Twitter spokeswoman. She added: “We have been investing in Twitter security practices for many years, and these security practices are constantly evolving to meet new security challenges and prevent and prevent malicious individuals, both external and internal. Twitter takes these threats very seriously. “
Abdul Aziz, who is in exile in Canada, hosts a YouTube channel, maintains a popular Twitter account, and shares satire and criticisms against the Saudi Arabian government. “What happened as a result of this data sharing was that he turned from one of the many prominent Saudi Arabian dissidents to one of the few chosen,” said Gharagozli.
Garagozuri said Abdul Aziz’s relatives and friends who remained in Saudi Arabia were imprisoned in an attempt to “torture by an agent” by Abdul Aziz. A Saudi Arabian government spokesman declined to comment.
“The important thing for Omar is that the platform is secure, or at least more secure in the future,” said Mark Clayman, another lawyer for Abdul Aziz. “He expressed it in a way that really impressed him early on. He said:’Twitter is our Congress. That’s what the MBS tech attack essentially happened in a way that worked. , Attacking it and occupying it forever is devastating. “
