Kunstler v. Central Intelligence Agency is a lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency, former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Undercover Global S.L., and David Morales Guillen filed by a group of American lawyers and journalists associated with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The lawsuit alleges that the CIA violated their constitutional rights by recording their conversations with Assange and copying their phones and computers after suspicions were raised that Assange was working for the Russian intelligence services.
The lawsuit was filed in August 2022 in the United States southern district of New York's District Court by lawyers Margaret Kunstler and Deborah Hrbek, and journalists Charles Glass and John Goetz. The lawsuit alleged that the CIA worked with David Morales and the firm Undercover Global (UC Global), which provided security to the Ecuadorian embassy Assange had asylum in to spy on him. In January 2023, an amended complaint was filed that requested any information collected be destroyed.
According to the lawsuit, the CIA recruited UC Global in 2017 through officials from the Las Vegas Sands casino group, which was controlled by Sheldon Adelson who the suit alleges "had cooperated with the CIA on similar matters in the past." UC Global provided security for the embassy and required guests to sign in and leave electronic devices with guards before visiting Assange. The information was allegedly copied and sent to the CIA, with Pompeo's knowledge and approval. UC Global also allegedly sent recordings from security cameras and microphones secretly placed around the embassy to the CIA. Previous filings by Assange's lawyers in Spanish courts had also named Zohar Lahav and Brian Nagel of Las Vegas Sands and alleged that the surveillance continued under Promsecurity after UC Global's contract ended.
Morales has denied working for the CIA and said that the surveillance was done at the request of Ecuador's government. In April 2019, El Pais quoted him as saying that "The situation Assange is in is not easy because of his emotional state. Throughout the length of his stay, he has gone through different stages in which he was more or less in agreement with the [security and surveillance] procedures, but that is an area that does not correspond to him, but rather the client." At a press conference in New York, the lawyers representing Assange's associates said that Ecuador was unaware of the surveillance. The lawyers allege that the surveillance violated the rights of more than 100 US citizens.
In November 2022, Mike Pompeo was served while in front of a greenscreen.
Surveillance of Assange
In 2015, Cynthia Viteri and Fernando Villavicencio sent secret documents to WikiLeaks showing that Ecuador was using an Italian company to run a surveillance program that was spying on journalists and political enemies, in addition to spying on Assange in the embassy. The New York Times reported that leaked chat logs from 2015 show that Assange and his inner circle were aware of the documents, which were not published by WikiLeaks.
In May 2018, The Guardian reported that over five years Ecuador had spent at least $5million (£3.7m) to protect and surveil Assange, employing a security company and undercover agents to monitor him, his visitors, embassy staff and the British police as part of Operation Guest and Operation Hotel. New CCTV cameras were installed in the embassy soon after Assange moved in, and security personnel recorded his activities and interactions with staff, his legal team and other visitors in minute detail. Assange was questioned about visitors, who were required to leave their passports with security, which was used to create profiles of the visitors with details of the visit.
The Guardian reported that in 2014, the company hired to monitor Assange warned Ecuador's government that he was "intercepting and gathering information from the embassy and the people who worked there" and that he had compromised the embassy's communications system. WikiLeaks described the allegation as "an anonymous libel aligned with the current UK-US government onslaught against Mr Assange". The Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK, Juan Falconí Puig, was unaware of the operation until a bill went to the embassy in May 2015 and Ecuadorian foreign minister Ricardo Patiño had to explain the situation to the ambassador.