This is a "WikiLeaks News Update," constantly updated throughout each day. The blog tracks stories that are obviously related to WikiLeaks but also follows stories related to freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, freedom of expression, and sometimes the national security establishment of the United States because each issue/topic helps one further understand WikiLeaks and vice versa.
All the times are EST. You can contact me at kgosztola@hotmail.com with any news tips. Twitter username is @kgosztola. Also, if you are looking for some insightful discussion of stories related to WikiLeaks, I encourage you to check out the catalog of podcasts posted here at WL Central from the "This Week in WikiLeaks" show I produce every week.
10:50 PM One more WikiLeaks Haiti news item to draw your attention to. This is a post by Dan Coughlin at The Nation that highlights how a cable was sent out in 2005 by a diplomat that in one sentence read, "The last thing Haiti needs now is an earthquake."
10:45 PM At ACLU's "Blog of Rights," a post on why surveillance programs should not be kept secret.
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update," constantly updated throughout each day. The blog tracks stories that are obviously related to WikiLeaks but also follows stories related to freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, freedom of expression, and sometimes the national security establishment of the United States because each issue/topic helps one further understand WikiLeaks and vice versa.
All the times are EST. You can contact me at kgosztola@hotmail.com with any news tips. Twitter username is @kgosztola. Also, if you are looking for some insightful discussion of stories related to WikiLeaks, I encourage you to check out the catalog of podcasts posted here at WL Central from the "This Week in WikiLeaks" show I produce every week.
10:15 PM Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department not only going after WikiLeaks and its supporters but also targeting antiwar and international solidarity activists. Politico reports on how union support for the targeted activists could be a headache for President Obama as he works toward re-election.
Any way WikiLeaks supporters can make the targeting of WikiLeaks a headache for Obama's re-election campaign?
9:45 PM Greek cables: Ta Nea covers what a US diplomat in Greece thought about the university asylum law.
David House of the Bradley Manning Support Network to Appear Wednesday Morning, June 15th in Alexandria, VA
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — David House, a founding member of the Bradley Manning Support Network, is among several Boston area residents who have been ordered to testify before a federal grand jury convened in Alexandria, VA to investigate WikiLeaks. House is scheduled to appear tomorrow, Wednesday morning, June 15th.
Advocates of government transparency are preparing to rally outside the courthouse tomorrow morning starting at 9:30am ET, coinciding with House’s appearance. Supporters in Boston—where House resides—will hold an afternoon rally at 6pm ET. (details below)
“This harassment only increases our resolve to defend our fundamental constitutional freedoms,” said Jeff Paterson of the Bradley Manning Support Network. "By conducting the people’s business in secret and persecuting transparency advocates, government decision-makers have abandoned core American values.”
In addition to supporting David House and opposing the grand jury investigation of WikiLeaks, the protests will draw attention to the ongoing pretrial confinement of PFC Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst who stands accused of blowing the whistle on illegal and unjust foreign policies.
“The Justice Department’s unprecedented crackdown, not only on accused whistle-blowers, but also their friends and supporters, stems from the same impulse to silence legitimate dissent that has become a hallmark of corrupt governments the world over,” said Kevin Zeese, an attorney with the Bradley Manning Support Network. "It is heartening to see that some witnesses are refusing to cooperate with this campaign to conceal the truth."
The past twenty four hours saw some big stories related to WikiLeaks break.
-The Grand Jury investigation into WikiLeaks widened as news subpoenas were issued to individuals like David House, co-founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network.
-The US government's case against Thomas Drake totally imploded. He accepted a misdemeanor plea deal and will likely serve no jail time primarily because the government did not want to make its case against Drake with information on classified technology.
-Andy Greenberg of Forbes.com reported on an ACLU lawsuit against the government for not complying with FOIA requests for specific US State Embassy cables
I had Trevor Timm, the person behind the @WLLegal Twitter account, record a podcast to talk about these recent WikiLeaks-related stories.
To listen, click play on the embedded player below (Or, go here to listen and download.)
The grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks has widened. A subpoena has been issued to David House, co-founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network. Manning’s ex-boyfriend, Tyler Watkins, who recently appeared in PBS Frontline’s “WikiSecrets” documentary, and Nadia Heninger, who has done work with WikiLeaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum (someone whose Twitter user data has been subpoenaed by the government), have each been served with a subpoena.
The new subpoenas come just over a month after the grand jury began meeting in Alexandria, Virginia on May 11 this year. Then, it was known at least one individual from Cambridge was issued a subpoena seeking to compel him to testify before a Grand Jury. And, Carrie Johnson of NPR, in one of the few articles published on the investigation by a US media organization, suggested “national security experts” could not “remember a time when the Justice Department has pursued so many criminal cases based on leaks of government secrets.”
Glenn Greenwald, who has been following the Grand Jury investigation since its inception, calls attention to the potential for witnesses to refuse to cooperate in this “pernicious investigation.”
One witness who has appeared before the Grand Jury has already refused to answer any questions beyond the most basic biographical ones (name and address), invoking the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to do so, and other witnesses are highly likely to follow suit.
Antiwar and international solidarity activists, subjects of a federal grand jury investigation that alleges they may have provided “material support for terrorism,” uncovered documents on FBI guidelines and investigation practices left behind in an activist’s home that was raided in September of last year. The documents illuminate how the FBI has conducted surveillance of the activists being targeted in the investigation and further prove the grand jury is being used as a tool to go after political groups.
On September 24 of last year, the home of Lindon Gawboy and Mick Kelly, an activist who helped to organize a mass demonstration outside the Republican National Convention in 2008, was raided and subpoenaed. Gawboy was awoken by FBI pounding on her door. She came to the door and asked for a search warrant. The FBI ignored her request for a warrant and proceeded to use a battering ram, which took the door off its hinges and shattered a nearby fish tank.
The agents raiding Gawboy and Kelly’s home emptied file cabinets and desks and stacked files around the apartments. They set up and went through individual documents taking files away that were of interest to them. At some point during this process, an agent’s papers on the investigation became mixed in with Kelly’s files. And, presumably by chance, Gawboy found the revealed documents just weeks ago.
Edited podcast now posted.
There are three high profile federal grand jury investigations. For each one, the argument could be made that the grand jury is chilling political action or seeking to criminalize people for associating with certain groups that are not charged with committing any crimes but instead are unsavory and illegitimate to the government.
The investigations being referred to are the investigation into Anonymous that is based in San Jose, California, the investigation into antiwar and international solidarity activists that is based in Chicago, Illinois, and the investigation into WikiLeaks that is based in Alexandria, Virginia.
Joining the "This Week in WikiLeaks" show this week is Jim Fennerty, who is a Chicago-based attorney defending the activists who were raided by the FBI in September of last year and now face a grand jury investigation. He is with the National Lawyers Guild and will be here to talk about his work defending the activists and will talk about the grand jury process and what those following the WikiLeaks might see happen in Alexandria as the investigation moves forward.
To listen to the show, click play on the widget below:
You can also listen to the show by going to this page. The podcast will appear in the list of "CMN News" episodes. Click the latest "This Week in WikiLeaks" episode and download. (The podcast can also be downloaded off of iTunes by searching for "CMN News" and then downloading the latest podcast.)
In the final week of January, twelve anti-war, labor and international solidarity activists were expected to appear before a grand jury in Chicago. They refused to go before the grand jury.
These activists from Chicago, the Twin Cities in Minnesota, and other areas have been subpoenaed over the past months. Several of the activists had their homes raided. Documents, cell phones, storage disks, computers, and children's artwork were seized from their home. The subpoenas indicated the FBI was looking for evidence that the activists had provided "material support for terrorism." And, it was discovered that the FBI had an informant, who went by the name of "Karen Sullivan," infiltrate an anti-war group in the Twin Cities.
This "witch-hunt" began on September 24th and, since then, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has been working to get activists to testify before a grand jury in Chicago. So far, all the activists have refused to participate in this "fishing expedition."
WL Central recently began posting coverage of this story. And, as the grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks and those who might be linked to WikiLeaks advances, it seems appropriate to provide context and shine a light on other stories of suppression of freedom and civil liberties in the United States.
Here is a profile of one of the activists (which I wrote and originally posted at OpEdNews.com in January):
Update 2 - May 11 - 1:50 PM New York Time
This statement was posted by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression yesterday night. It is the latest on Hatem Abudayyeh, a Palestinian solidarity activist, who is one of twenty-three activists that has been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in Chicago.
From the statement:
On Friday, May 6th, the bank accounts of Hatem and Naima Abudayyeh of Chicago were frozen. The bank manager at the TCF (Twin Cities Federal) branch could not explain what had happened but stated that the Bank Security Act prevented him from releasing any assets.
In a strange turn of events, the bank admitted announced today (May 10) that they shut down the accounts, stating they no longer want to provide banking services to the Abudayyeh family. Simultaneously, TCF management informed the Abudayyehs today that they were issuing them a check for the value of their accounts.
Calls from across the United States ha an impact. A Code Pink activist from Washington, DC called US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's office and was told, "We've received hundreds of calls." The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) received numerous calls as well and "journalists from a National Public Radio affiliate, Al Jazeera and other agencies contacted them for an explanation."
The family's attorney, Michael Deutsch, says, "In my opinion, the bank did not act out of the blue. I suspect that the FBI and U.S Attorney investigation caused the bank to overreact and illegally freeze the Abudayyehs’ banking accounts that had been there for over a decade."
A federal grand jury is meeting at 11 am EST in Alexandria, Virginia. The grand jury is being employed to “build” a case against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who just won a gold medal for peace and justice from the Sydney Peace Foundation.
“The WikiLeaks case is part of a much broader campaign by the Obama administration to crack down on leakers,” writes Carrie Johnson of NPR. Johnson is one of a few reporters in the US press who has published a report today on this stirring development in the United States. She finds “national security experts” cannot “remember a time when the Justice Department has pursued so many criminal cases based on leaks of government secrets.”
The number of people subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury is unclear (and not in any of the few news articles published on the grand jury so far). What is known is that at least one individual from Cambridge was issued a subpoena seeking to compel him to testify before a Grand Jury. Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com reported the individual served had a public link to the WikiLeaks case and it was “highly likely” the subpoena was connected to the WikiLeaks Grand Jury investigation.
There are two other federal Grand Juries that are ongoing in the country. In San Jose, California, a Grand Jury has been empanelled to investigate the “hacktivist” group, Anonymous. Another Grand Jury in Chicago has been empanelled to target antiwar, labor and international solidarity activists for their political action.
Update: Edited podcast is posted.
The long-awaited release of the Guantanamo Files. More than 10,000 cables in the Cablegate release now posted—2000 of them from Canada and just out before the country's election. The Grand Jury beginning to issue subpoenas in its investigation of WikiLeaks. The media getting an out-of-the-ordinary tour of Ft. Leavenworth with the consent of the Department of Defense.
There was much to talk about this week.
With so much to discuss, Trevor Timm, the person behind the Twitter account @WLLegal, joined the program to talk about the latest news on WikiLeaks. Timm helped to make possible a great Personal Democracy Forum event called, “WikiLeaks & the Law" just over a month ago. [Go here for video of the full panel.] He also appeared on the show just over a month ago.
To listen to the recorded "This Week in WikiLeaks" podcast, click on the widget below:
David House tweets Wikileaks grand jury subpoenas are being issued
Bradley Manning friend and supporter David House tweeted Subpoenas are being issued in the WikiLeaks grand jury. Violations of Espionage Act. No further comment at this time. two hours after tweeting "Are you now, or have you ever been, a WikiLeaks supporter?"
Julian Assange's defense attorney Mark Stephens retweeted the subpoenas comment, but followed up with @lockean how do you know? and was answered by House @MarksLarks FBI is making house calls
And now from Wikileaks: Fresh subpoenas are being issued in the WikiLeaks Alexandra, VA secret grand jury in relation to the espionage act.
Write to Bradley Manning
Jonathan Getzschman has obtained the following information for anyone wanting to write to Bradley Manning. A large and ongoing volume of mail would remind his new home that we are still watching.
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
Letters will be rejected if they contain any of the following:
Kevin Rudd
Minister Foreign Affairs
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
AUSTRALIA
Dear Minister
1) Julian Assange and Wikileaks.
Firstly I would like to say that the international community who support Julian Assange would undoubtedly thank you for your support of him on the issue of his legal rights in the UK and scotching the threats made by your colleagues the prime minister Ms Gillard and attorney general Mr McClelland to cancel his passport late last year. Your support of human rights in relation to Julian Assange is to be commended, including the intercession of our diplomats on his behalf asking certain questions of Swedish authorities (1) which it is assumed emanated from your good offices.
More could be done for example to point out to the European Union that their European Arrest Warrant System is disgracefully flawed and subject to serial abuses by member states (especially Poland) now that showing a prima facie case has been removed entirely from extradition procedures in the European Union’s EAW system. Australia as you would likely be aware, did not extradite without the applicant nation showing a prima facie case up until 1985 when the “no evidence” and “dual criminality” provisions became available to applicant nations under amended legislation.(2) Where subjected to abuse, prima facie requirements should be reinstated.
As you are also no doubt aware the US Department of Justice is leaving no pebble unturned in their vengeful attempts to find - or more likely - manufacture some evidence against Julian Assange for a charge of conspiracy to commit espionage.
This is happening despite First Amendment protections which the DOJ’s epigones are attempting to undermine as they engage in polemical arguments using gymnastic semantics in the US media, in an exercise to assert he is not a journalist as a means to preclude those rights, contrary to the US constitution.
Oral hearing for Wikileaks Twitter appeal cancelled
Today's hearing of oral arguments has been cancelled in the appeal of last month's order over whether the US government has the right to access the online information of three Twitter users in aid of its WikiLeaks investigation, and also whether they can be informed of what other internet companies have turned over their information without notifying them. The three, Icelandic MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir, US citizen Jacob Appelbaum and Rop Gonggrijp of the Netherlands, were all notified by Twitter of the order against their data. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have been assisting the three users with their challenge.
EFF earlier wrote "cooperating counsel John Keker of Keker and Van Nest will urge the court Friday to require the government to protect the First Amendment freedoms of speech and association of the Twitter users and the Fourth Amendment rights of the users in their locations. ACLU attorney Aden Fine will ask the court to unseal all documents related to other requests for private data".
US District Court Judge Liam O'Grady canceled the hearing and will instead issue a ruling after reading both sides' written briefs.
Update: Rop Gonggrijp writes on his blog: "It may be good if we all take a deep breath and get grounded a bit here. There are no new events other than the justice minister in The Netherlands providing rather obvious answers to questions from MPs. I really don’t think the minister giving perfectly predictable answers should be news. There is, as of yet, no indictment. Let alone an extradition request. I helped publish a video documenting war crimes. My lawyers and me have absolutely no idea what crime they could even charge me with. If they indeed want something from me, the prosecutors are likely facing the same problem.
"So there may very well never be an extradition request, just a very long period of nothing much happening. Which doesn’t mean this isn’t something to worry about or keep a close eye on. But it’s probably not worthy of getting in a nationwide or even global frenzy over just yet."
Uri Rosenthal, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Netherlands, responded to questioning from Green MP Arjan El Fassed by saying that he does not rule out extradition of Rop Gonggrijp (pictured left) to the US.
Federal Magistrate Judge Theresa C. Buchanan ruled the “Twitter 3,” who have become ensnared in a WikiLeaks investigation, cannot keep the US government from looking at their Twitter information and the information they would like to be public cannot be disclosed. With support from the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Jacob Appelbaum, Birgitta Jonsdottir, and Rop Gonggrijp, the three, will appeal the decision.
The “Twitter 3” sought to convince the court the Twitter Order violated First and Fourth Amendment rights. The Court found there was no First Amendment violation because the three had “already made their Twitter posts and associations publicly available.” The Court memo on the decision explains:
The Twitter Order does not seek to control or direct the content of petitioners’ speech or association. Rather, it is a routine compelled disclosure of non-content information which petitioners voluntarily provided to Twitter pursuant to Twitter’s Privacy Policy. Additionally, the Court’s §2703(d) analysis assured that the Twitter Order is reasonable in scope, and the government has a legitimate interest in the disclosures sought.
On the Fourth Amendment argument, the Court finds no “privacy interest” in protecting “IP addresses” and argued, “The Court is aware of no authority finding that an IP address shows location with precision, let alone provides insight into a home’s interior or a user’s movements.”
Authored by Tony Kevin, former Australian Diplomat.
Chillingly, inexorably, the lifepaths of Julian Assange and Bradley Manning are converging.
Not yet in the sense that Manning’s US military torturers hope for, with a desired confession by him whether true or falsely coerced of prior collaboration with Assange to pass US classified intelligence material to Wikileaks. Either would satisfy them, because even a false and forced confession, that could be later disavowed by Manning in court, could be enough in the US judicial system to trigger a valid US secret grand jury arrest warrant for Assange’s extradition to the US. Such a warrant could be served either on the UK or Swedish governments, depending on where Assange was at the time.
More broadly, their stories are appropriately coming together now as stories of two young national heroes, one American and one Australian, who are putting their lives on the line now for the sake of defending the principle of individual moral accountability for the actions of their national states that profess to share similar political values. This principle has been variously expressed by many political leaders and thinkers, of which a few examples here will suffice. I am sure an Obama quotation could be readily found to add to this short list:
US founding father Benjamin Franklin, in 1792 - … a nation as a society forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Martin Luther King at the height of his US civil rights struggle - Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
"Conspiracy as Governance", Julian Assange, 3 December 2006, from me@iq.org
News broke last night on February 8 as a court unsealed three motions filed on behalf of Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) last month. The motions were filed in response to the U.S. government’s targeting of Twitter accounts as part of an investigation related to WikiLeaks.
Additionally, it was reported that a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia will be held on February 15 on whether there is legal justification for the Justice Department to request Twitter account details and whether the Justice Department order for Twitter turn over account information should be kept under seal.
Federal prosecutors are and have been seeking to obtain information on Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir, Dutch hacker and entrepreneur Roy Gonggrijp and US computer programmer and known WikiLeaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum as well as “subscriber account information” for Bradley Manning, who has been charged with leaking classified information, and WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange.
Jacob Appelbaum is a security analyst who works on Tor and Wikileaks, and has been very instrumental in discovering weaknesses in the Haystack system, among other things. He has gained notoriety with the US government through acting as a speaker and advocate of Wikileaks, and became widely known last fall after a Rolling Stone article calling him "The Most Dangerous Man in Cyberspace" and "The American hacker behind Wikileaks". Recently he was one of the subjects of a subpoena from the US DoJ requesting information from Twitter.
While the Twitter story broke he was in Iceland, and he returned to the US on Monday. He has been the subject of repeated harassment at airports this year, and apparently Monday was no exception, despite members of the ACLU meeting him at the airport. He will be headed to Toronto this weekend and will be able to experience the independence (or not) of Canadian customs.
His tweets on his most recent experience arriving in the US:
Ryan Singel, at Wired's Threat Level Blog, presents a laudatory analysis of Twitter's decision to challenge the DoJ's move, during a secret Grand Jury investigation in Virgina, to subpoena the private details of various accounts related to WikiLeaks. WL Central has covered this issue in detail (listed at the bottom of this post. Singel's article presents Twitter's decision in an industrial context, and plays counterpoint to the idea that "good corporate citizenship" should always mean complying with government wishes whenever that seems expedient.
From:WIRED.COM: Twitter's Response to WikiLeaks Subpoena Should Be the Industry Standard
Of course, it's not the first time tech companies have stood up to requests for user data. Google beat back a government order to turn over search logs in 2006, after AOL and Microsoft quietly acquiesced. We've seen ISPs stand up for their users when movie studios try to force ISPs turn over user information in mass peer-to-peer lawsuits. And just last year, Yahoo successfully resisted the Justice Department's argument that it didn't need a warrant to read a user's e-mails once the user had read them.
But there's not yet a culture of companies standing up for users when governments and companies come knocking with subpoenas looking for user data or to unmask an anonymous commenter who says mean things about a company or the local sheriff.
In the WikiLeaks probe, it's not yet clear whether the feds dropped the same order on other companies.
Regardless, Twitter deserves recognition for its principled upholding of the spirit of the First Amendment. It's a shame that PayPal, Amazon, Visa, MasterCard, Bank of America and the U.S. government all failed - and continue to to fail - at their own versions of that test.
Other Coverage of the Twitter Subpoena on WL Central
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