" it inspires our enemies to know the art of the possible."
I am not really knowledgeable about this, but intuitively I suspect serious criminals are aware their phones have cameras and microphones that could be used to spy on them. I suspect the reason for keeping it a secret is the public had a say, they might not want the gov't to have these tools. People working at the CIA are good people who honestly think they're the good guys. If there's a way to keep it secret from the American public, even with the questionable argument that foreign targets aren't aware of this their methods, they'll take it because it makes their job of protecting Americans from criminals easier. They believe in the Fourth Amendment in principle to protect people from gov't abuse, but they're the good guys who would never abuse it, they think, so it's hard to say no to it. This is the unfortunate path that leads to someone somewhere down the line abusing the power for political or personal gain.

This is the result of two basic problems, govt. officials that are dirty have not been punished at all, let alone to a higher degree, which would be justified by the use of public granted power to commit the crime. We do not fight our enemies as we would in a personal life or death situation, if we did, we would soon be out of enemies - there is no profit, or power for politicians without national enemies.

Except in this case we have an intelligence agency running their own agenda for the domination of the people.

The best defense against our enemies is for the people to arm themselves. The CIA works on the premise that the people do not arm themselves.

They have also been keeping vulnerabilities that are discovered secret so they can use them themselves instead of notifying the producers of software and hardware so the problems can be fixed. It is part of the mentality that wants government to enforce "trapdoors", prohibit encryption or strong encryption, and otherwise exploit and cause as a matter of policy deliberate weaknesses that make security impossible and illegal.

Like Stutnex.

Thanks for posting this article, Solver;^)

NSA, FBI, CIA and several other agencies have been developing and using spying methods for pcs, smart phones, and appliances on the "internet of things" for many years. Whistleblowers were exposing this and being persecuted for it long before Snowden's expose' and long before the incompetent and evil Clinton used an insecure private server.

No one should be surprised by the latest revelations about the CIA. They are simply an update to previous leaks, including the comprehensive expose' of NSA by Snowden a few years ago. A lot of attention was focused on NSA because of Snowden, but to the extent the public paid much attention at all there was a public misperception that it was only about NSA. In fact, it was revealed in the Snowden documents that NSA was developing and sharing tools with multiple agencies, including foreign countries, which are used to spy on all kinds of people and that the agencies have been hiding and lying about all of it.

"Smart tvs" are supposed to know what you are watching, what you want to do, and now use voice and apparently motion tracking. Several brands have been caught spying on customers to report back information that is sold to marketeers, and the "internet of things" is notorious for wireless insecurity. That is what makes it possible for hackers and government spies to exploit your own appliances to spy on you.