Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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The Obama administration fought a legal battle against Google to secretly obtain the email records of a security researcher and journalist associated with WikiLeaks.
Newly unsealed court documents obtained by The Intercept reveal the Justice Department won an order forcing Google to turn over more than one yearās worth of data from the Gmail account of Jacob Appelbaum (pictured above), a developer for the Tor online anonymity project who has worked with WikiLeaks as a volunteer. The order also gagged Google, preventing it from notifying Appelbaum that his records had been provided to the government.
The surveillance of Appelbaumās Gmail account was tied to the Justice Departmentās long-running criminal investigation of WikiLeaks, which began in 2010 following the transparency groupās publication of a large cache of U.S. government diplomatic cables.
According to the unsealed documents, the Justice Department first sought details from Google about a Gmail account operated by Appelbaum in January 2011, triggering a three-month dispute between the government and the tech giant. Government investigators demanded metadata records from the account showing email addresses of those with whom Appelbaum had corresponded between the period of November 2009 and early 2011; they also wanted to obtain information showing the unique IP addresses of the computers he had used to log in to the account.
The Justice Department argued in the case that Appelbaum had āno reasonable expectation of privacyā over his email records under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Rather than seeking a search warrant that would require it to show probable cause that he had committed a crime, the government instead sought and received an order to obtain the data under a lesser standard, requiring only āreasonable groundsā to believe that the records were ārelevant and materialā to an ongoing criminal investigation.
Google repeatedly attempted to challenge the demand, and wanted to immediately notify Appelbaum that his records were being sought so he could have an opportunity to launch his own legal defense. Attorneys for the tech giant argued in a series of court filings that the governmentās case raised āserious First Amendment concerns.ā They noted that Appelbaumās records āmay implicate journalistic and academic freedomā because they could āreveal confidential sources or information about WikiLeaksā purported journalistic or academic activities.ā
Revealed How DOJ Gagged Google over Surveillance of WikiLeaks Volunteer - The Intercept
At this point, it's rather silly.
Newly unsealed court documents obtained by The Intercept reveal the Justice Department won an order forcing Google to turn over more than one yearās worth of data from the Gmail account of Jacob Appelbaum (pictured above), a developer for the Tor online anonymity project who has worked with WikiLeaks as a volunteer. The order also gagged Google, preventing it from notifying Appelbaum that his records had been provided to the government.
The surveillance of Appelbaumās Gmail account was tied to the Justice Departmentās long-running criminal investigation of WikiLeaks, which began in 2010 following the transparency groupās publication of a large cache of U.S. government diplomatic cables.
According to the unsealed documents, the Justice Department first sought details from Google about a Gmail account operated by Appelbaum in January 2011, triggering a three-month dispute between the government and the tech giant. Government investigators demanded metadata records from the account showing email addresses of those with whom Appelbaum had corresponded between the period of November 2009 and early 2011; they also wanted to obtain information showing the unique IP addresses of the computers he had used to log in to the account.
The Justice Department argued in the case that Appelbaum had āno reasonable expectation of privacyā over his email records under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Rather than seeking a search warrant that would require it to show probable cause that he had committed a crime, the government instead sought and received an order to obtain the data under a lesser standard, requiring only āreasonable groundsā to believe that the records were ārelevant and materialā to an ongoing criminal investigation.
Google repeatedly attempted to challenge the demand, and wanted to immediately notify Appelbaum that his records were being sought so he could have an opportunity to launch his own legal defense. Attorneys for the tech giant argued in a series of court filings that the governmentās case raised āserious First Amendment concerns.ā They noted that Appelbaumās records āmay implicate journalistic and academic freedomā because they could āreveal confidential sources or information about WikiLeaksā purported journalistic or academic activities.ā
Revealed How DOJ Gagged Google over Surveillance of WikiLeaks Volunteer - The Intercept
At this point, it's rather silly.
