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Privacy Issues: CIA hacks TVs, phones all over the world, Wikileaks claims

The CIA has become the preeminent hacking operation, sneaking into high-tech phones and televisions to spy on people worldwide, according to an explosive WikiLeaks publication of purported internal CIA documents on Tuesday.

To hide its operations, the CIA routinely adopted hacking techniques that enabled them to appear as if they were hackers in Russia, WikiLeaks said.

WikiLeaks also claimed that nearly all of the CIA's arsenal of privacy-crushing cyberweapons have been stolen, and the tools are potentially in the hands of criminals and foreign spies.

WikiLeaks claimed the stolen tools ended up in the hands of "former U.S. government hackers and contractors... one of whom" leaked documents to WikiLeaks.

U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu of California called for an immediate congressional investigation.

"I am deeply disturbed by the allegation that the CIA lost its arsenal of hacking tools. The ramifications could be devastating," he said in a statement. ""We need to know if the CIA lost control of its hacking tools, who may have those tools, and how do we now protect the privacy of Americans."

"The potential privacy concerns are mind-boggling," he said.

WikiLeaks said it published the documents to show the potentially hazardous ramifications of the CIA's covert hacking program -- and the massive theft of those tools.

"There is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber 'weapons,'" said WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange in a statement.

WikiLeaks, an outfit that believes in transparency, backed up the claims by publishing a massive trove of what it says are secret CIA documents. It calls the collection "Year Zero," and it consists of 8,761 documents and files.

The CIA, citing standing policy, declined to say whether the published documents are genuine.

"We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents," said CIA spokeswoman Heather Fritz Horniak. 

Read more: CIA hacks TVs, phones all over the world, Wikileaks claims - Mar. 7, 2017