Two former employees of the social networking site Twitter have been charged with spying for Saudi Arabia and "being illegal agents of a foreign government," the US Justice Department said Thursday.
US Attorney General David Anderson said in a statement that "the criminal complaint disclosed today accuses Saudi elements of searching Twitter's internal systems in order to obtain personal information about Saudi dissidents and thousands of Twitter users."
"US laws protect American companies from such illegal outside penetration, and we will not allow US companies or technology to be used as a tool for external repression and violations of US laws," he said.
Assistant US Attorney for National Security said the defendants worked in the United States, under the supervision and guidance of Saudi officials, and obtained special information about Twitter users opposed to the Saudi government.
He said the defendants' behavior was contrary to the freedom of expression on which the United States was founded.
Jay Tap, assistant executive director of the FBI, said the FBI would follow those who ignore the country's democratic laws and principles.
Ali al-Zubara, 35, and Ahmed Abu Amo, 41, are accused of using their Twitter status to obtain IP addresses, e-mail and birth dates from Twitter accounts, and then transfer that information to Riyadh.
In 2015, Al Zubara provided data on at least 6,000 accounts, especially about a Saudi dissident whose family has sought refuge in Canada, according to the indictment.
One former employee has been arrested in Washington State, while the second is still at large, presumably in Saudi Arabia.
A third person, 30-year-old Saudi Ahmed al-Mutairi, was also accused of being Riyadh's envoy to former employees and is suspected of helping the Zubara family flee the United States at the end of 2015 after the Twitter administration asked him questions for the first time.
Prosecutors said the former employees were accused of abusing their Twitter posts in exchange for money and other benefits.
Abu Amo appears to have spied on several accounts between the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 for a luxury watch and at least $ 300,000.
Saudi directives
The US Justice Department said al-Mutairi and al-Zubara were probably in Saudi Arabia, adding that they had issued arrest warrants against them.
Abu Amo, who lied to FBI interrogators who came for questioning in October 2018, was arrested Tuesday in Seattle in the northwestern United States.
According to the indictment, the three men were following the instructions of an unidentified Saudi official working for a person whom investigators called "a member of the royal family-1". The Washington Post reported that he was Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
A three-year jail sentence, a $ 250,000 fine, and an extra 20-year fine and a $ 250,000 fine for destroying, altering or falsifying records, Abu Ammo faces, the Justice Department said in a statement.
The indictment comes as relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia remain strained over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at his country's consulate in Istanbul last year.
An expert at the United Nations and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) blamed the Saudi crown prince for his death.
Great risk
The prosecutions again raise questions about the ability of the California-based Twitter group to protect its users' confidential data, especially against repressive regimes.
The case is a new confusing chapter for Twitter after the piracy of its president, Jacques Dorsey, in September.
"We are aware of the efforts of bad parties to attack our service," a spokesman for Dorsey told AFP. "We restrict access to sensitive information to a small number of employees."
"We recognize the great risk that those who use Twitter to share their opinions and demand those who sit in power to hold accountable," he said, stressing that Twitter has tools to protect them.