WASHINGTON (AP) – The CIA has gone dark about the WikiLeaks dump of nearly 9,000 pages of purported U.S. intelligence files, even as the anti-secrecy group raised the prospect of providing technology companies additional sensitive details it says it has about the agency’s hacking tools.
The CIA wouldn’t confirm Wednesday that the material came from its files, although no one is doubting they did. The CIA wouldn’t talk about whether there was any investigation underway to figure out how the material ended up on the internet for all to see. And the agency wouldn’t say whether it suspects that a mole lurking inside the CIA secretly spirited the material to WikiLeaks, or whether the CIA could have been the victim of a hack.
Still, without acknowledging any breach, the CIA warned: “The American public should be deeply troubled by any WikiLeaks disclosure designed to damage the intelligence community’s ability to protect America against terrorists and other adversaries. Such disclosures not only jeopardize U.S. personnel and operations, but also equip our adversaries with tools and information to do us harm.”
It was the same message at the White House. “It is our policy as a government not to confirm the authenticity of any kind of disclosure or hack,” said press secretary Sean Spicer.
Outside political circles, the fallout and damage to U.S. intelligence operations was still being assessed, but causing alarm nonetheless.