The U.A.E. Hired Ex-NSA Operatives To Establish Its Own Surveillance Network

U.S. CYBERWARRIORSBefore joining Project Raven in the UAE, many of the operatives worked for the U.S. National Security Agency. Its headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, is pictured above.Handout photo from NSA

Reuters: Inside the UAE’s secret hacking team of American mercenaries

Ex-NSA operatives reveal how they helped spy on targets for the Arab monarchy — dissidents, rival leaders and journalists.

Two weeks after leaving her position as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. National Security Agency in 2014, Lori Stroud was in the Middle East working as a hacker for an Arab monarchy.

She had joined Project Raven, a clandestine team that included more than a dozen former U.S. intelligence operatives recruited to help the United Arab Emirates engage in surveillance of other governments, militants and human rights activists critical of the monarchy.

Stroud and her team, working from a converted mansion in Abu Dhabi known internally as “the Villa,” would use methods learned from a decade in the U.S intelligence community to help the UAE hack into the phones and computers of its enemies.

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Update: UAE 'used spying tool' to target Qatar's emir, other rivals (Al Jazeera)

WNU Editor: I am willing to bet that every country in the Middle East has done the same thing.