![]() ![]() That raises more questions about why the CIA and state department were so reluctant to believe their own officers could have been targeted by such weapons when cases appeared in Cuba and then China in 2018 and elsewhere around the world. The reality is that this has been an intelligence community issue for decades Mark Zaidīut what is so striking about Beck’s case is that its origins were two decades earlier – and that it produced official confirmation more than eight years ago that such weapons had been developed by America’s adversaries. The CIA and state department have launched taskforces to investigate and it was reported last week that the Pentagon had launched its own inquiry into suspected microwave attacks on US troops in the Middle East.Įarlier this month, the senior director for the western hemisphere in the national security council, Juan Gonzalez, voiced concern over the lingering risk to US diplomats from microwave weapons in Cuba, in an interview with the CNN Spanish language service. The statement came the day after the White House said it was looking into “ unexplained health incidents” after reports that two of its own officials had been targeted in the Washington area. The Democratic and Republican leadership on the Senate intelligence committee put out a bipartisan statement on Friday, saying: “This pattern of attacking our fellow citizens serving our government appears to be increasing.” Last December the National Academy of Sciences published a report finding that the scores of CIA and state department officials affected by “Havana syndrome” in Cuba, China and elsewhere, were most likely suffering the “effects of directed, pulsed radio frequency energy”.Īfter years of playing down the reports and failing to provide proper medical care for the victims, Washington is now clearly alarmed at the implications of the attacks. ![]() I’m one of many.’”īeck had been forced into retirement in late 2016 by a rare early-onset, non-tremor form of Parkinson’s disease, and he had evidence, supplied by the NSA and the CIA, that he could have been the victim of a deliberate attack from a microwave weapon.Īfter years of lonely struggle, he now feels vindicated. ![]() “I felt bad for the victims but thought: ‘Now I’m no longer one of one. Cyberattacks have made the leap from being the niche activity of geeks to being the mainstream tools of the trade for crooks.“I got excited because I thought: well, it’s coming out now that it’s not a mirage,” Beck said. But, more widely, as Europol’s serious and organised crime report for 2017 reveals, highly sophisticated crime syndicates are increasingly using cyber in a way that affects us all. ![]() There is of course a legitimate ongoing debate about access to data by national intelligence agencies for specific law enforcement purposes. Fortunately we’re not powerless in this fight – increasing awareness, resilience and deterrence are things we can do collectively to tip the balance back in our favour. Technology’s promise was to make our lives easier but, with cybercrime and hacking showing an exponential rise, and the front line of this new battle potentially in your living room, you could be forgiven for believing that the utopian future is being transformed into a dystopian present that was predicted with chilling accuracy by George Orwell in his novel 1984. Julian Assange announces WikiLeaks will publish CIA cyber weapons ![]()
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