WikiLeaks Claims Employee's Google Mail, Metadata Seized By US Government 53
An anonymous reader writes On Christmas Eve, as the National Security Agency was releasing a report on NSA employees' abuses of surveillance technology, Google was telling WikiLeaks about another sort of surveillance. According to a statement by WikiLeaks on Twitter, Google informed the organization on December 24 that the Gmail mailboxes and account metadata of a WikiLeaks employee had been turned over to law enforcement under a U.S. federal warrant.
Least it was a REAL warrant... (Score:1)
And not one of those secret court ones this time around!
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And not one of those secret court ones this time around!
Pretty much this.
Re:Least it was a REAL warrant... (Score:4, Interesting)
They try to spin it as so malicious, including:
Right, it's not like they had any probable cause of illegal activity [rollingstone.com] back in 2011, no sirree.... You've got a Wikileaks volunteer who was at the time acting as an unofficial spokeman for the organization in the news, voluntarily coming up to them and telling them that Assange is working with Anonymous and LulzSec and ordering hacks and spying, including against US targets, and providing troves of data - are they supposed to just ignore that?
REAL warrant, by whom ? (Score:4, Insightful)
As time goes by, larger and larger portion of the government of the United States of America being infected and absorbed by the faction which favors fascism than liberty. Their aim is to turn the USA into a police state, under which each and every citizen must obey their instruction or else ...
Under this circumstance, even if it is a REAL WARRANT it doesn't even matter anymore, for a judge can turned rogue and can be as rogue as those who dare to lie to the congress, who violate almost all the rules in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, who willingly throw away the very spirits that makes America great and turn it into a petty Ceausescu-like police regime
Re: REAL warrant, by whom ? (Score:1)
The United States has always favored fascism over liberty. Go do a little research on the history nobody talks about. I'm not talking conspiracy theories. I'm talking old photographs in Life magazine and the like of people in New York and other American cities giving the Nazi salute with great enthusiasm. This is actual history, the likes of which are never shown by the corporate media. Adolf Hitler and in particular Nazi ideas we're all in fashion in this country. So were eugenics and whole lot of other d
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Once that would have been a good observation, but we're already past that point, and using a warrant is actually a step forward for a change.
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Even if the warrant *appears* to be genuine, and the avenues pursued to obtain it were in themselves legal, if the information used to obtain them was not quite shall we say, entirely complete or truthful, then ab initio they are invalid and void. Not "voidable" or challengable, VOID. Which renders any subsequent prosecution based on evidence gathered under the authority of said warrants, also VOID.
For definition of "complete" and "truthful", refer to the fact that John Doe lawsuits have previously been dec
pushing (Score:2)
they'r pushing you to see how far can they go.
it's called fuck with 99%
Why did they have a gmail account?! (Score:2)
You work for WikiLeaks and have a gmail account? How fucking fumb can you be?!
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There are very good reasons to have a gmail account as a wikileaks guy. For example you may need a formal reason to go to court maybe?
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I'm sure the government will glean a plethora of useful data after spending countless hours sifting through viagra ads, pandora spam, notifications that the t-mobile bill is now ready to view, and other such highly sensitive information one would trust to a Gmail account.
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Well, everything'll be redacted from defense lawyers and the public eye anyways, so whatever they don't find in there they can always simply add.
..."and somehow rewrite the message hash in the header to conceal the fact that the message body has in fact been tampered with."
Worn that t-shirt, matey. Pissed all over someone's claim that I had sent them messages (by proving, using the hashes, that they couldn't possibly have originated from my email account - without the need to access the account itself. In situ HMAC authentication failed every time).
breathing is consent (Score:2)
and exhaling is prohibited.
US email provider for sensitive communications? (Score:2)
Unless you are General Patreaus and his mistress.
Aren't there better providers in the EU that offer a bit more privacy? If you don't want to roll your own.
What's the news here? (Score:2)
A guy got his metadata and mailbox transmitted to law enforcement under an official valid federal warrant. It happens everyday. Oh! Wait, this is Wikileaks guy and he is supposed to be above the law, he is supposed to be some kind of semi-god and untouchable by any regulation in any country around the world. What do the OP expect from the /. community? A revolution? He wants people to knock at the door of the White House to tell Obama to immediately stop harassement otherwise, otherwise what?
I'm a bit tired
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The news is that wikileaks was using gmail. That's shockingly bad for security on many levels.
Re:What's the news here? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice rhetorical argument with yourself -- however, the issue from my point of view is Wikileaks is being targeted for being one of the last few "journalist' organizations. Corporate Media investigates it's holding companies and advertisers in the USA and they never find anything wrong. However, on sweeps week you will find out from Action News that there is a repairman who charges you for a new muffler but puts in an old one, and there are some government workers they caught napping.
The real issue from my point of view is that Wikileaks is not being investigated for wrong-doing -- they are being investigated to find out who their sources are. It's supposed to be a Democratic Representative government here and that's impossible without an informed electorate -- so any group; CIA, NSA or Al Qaeda that wants to keep you from the truth and put out false information is against what America is supposed to be about.
Wikileaks is not untouchable and above criticism, but they are one of the most important and precious things to America and the world right now, and the NSA and CIA look like the fascist dirt bags we were warned about. At every turn they prove why they should be mothballed. Keeping us safe from worse bad guys? Right. And next year the bad guys will get worse because they can't fight back against a drone. They attack what they can attack where it gets the most attention because we live in a world of asymmetrical warfare. Going head to head doesn't work. Protesting murders for marketshare doesn't work.
We have Wikileaks because our news media dropped the ball, and we have terrorism because we don't listen to people who suffer.
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And that's you who are saying about my post: "Nice rhetorical argument with yourself..." I still don't see in you argument where this guy is absolutely needed and if he believes he is so precious to the world, why in first place putting his stuff on Gmail where, he is supposed to be the first to know, it isn't safe?
Perhaps it is time to make wikileaks leaking its own stuff to see?
Why is this any different than a warrant for a wir (Score:1)
Re: Why is this any different than a warrant for a (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, it was 'just' a warrant that was served three days after Wikileaks' CIA dump. Because the government should be able to sieze journalists' email whenever they don't like a story if they can find some judge somewhere to sign. Jesus, people.
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Who the duck would class WikiLeaks as journalists? They may be many things, but I dont consider them to be journalists any more than a group of women gossiping over coffee could be considered journalists.
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depends if they got the warrant for legit/truthful reasons, though.
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So in summary you are OK with foreign anti-American activists collaborating to steal whatever defense or intelligence information they can get their hands on, for any purpose they want, and they shouldn't even be investigated. Right.
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No, the reply was to someone else. But I'll second your second point.
And that is why you shouldn't use Gmail (Score:3)
Or any Google product: they're in bed with the very government who's very clearly turned rogue against the US population, and they'll sell you out on request.
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Or any Google product: they're in bed with the very government who's very clearly turned rogue against the US population, and they'll sell you out on request.
Google complied with a judge-signed warrant. Could you name a US organization that doesn't comply with warrants signed by US judges? If the judge signed a warrant for information from your bank or cell phone provider or landlord, you think they'd say no?
What we do know is that Google fights warrants on user data in court before handing over the data. See the EFF's handy infographic [eff.org].
Now let me turn your comment on its head. You're a squeaky wheel who wants privacy, but you can't get it alone (except by disco
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Google can provide privacy
But they don't. They violate your privacy themselves, even when they're not cooperating with the government.
Why are you fighting against the people who are fighting for privacy?
They aren't fighting for privacy in any meaningful sense. Occasionally they fight back as a PR move, but they've allowed all sorts of egregious privacy violations, and violate your privacy themselves.
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Or any Google product: they're in bed with the very government who's very clearly turned rogue against the US population, and they'll sell you out on request.
There have been a few anti-Google submissions lately, this one made it through. But you can't say Google didn't take their time:
"The warrant was dated for execution by April 5, 2012 by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia,"
Read Bing's privacy disclosure (or any other website for that matter) they will all tell you they will cooperate with law enforcement. This is for /. or Dice's
"Please note that Dice reserves the right to disclose information submitted by or concerning any visitor or user as we reasonably feel is necessary to protect our systems or business. We may also disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law, such as to comply with a subpoena or other legal process, when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or respond to a government request. We cooperate with law enforcement agencies in identifying those who may be using our servers or Services for illegal activities. We also reserve the right to report any suspected illegal activity to law enforcement for investigation or prosecution, or to suspend or terminate your use of the Sites in connection with any suspected illegal or infringing activity or if you are in violation of our Terms of Use Agreement or other published guidelines."
http://slashdotmedia.com/priva... [slashdotmedia.com]
Just do what you already know, don't post or e-mail anything you wouldn't want to read in a newspaper (or a select few that can do you harm).
This includes snail mail, as once your name comes
Re:And that is why you shouldn't use Gmail (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you fucking kidding me? They got served a lawful warrant and spent 2.5yr to fight it and had to eventually comply. Look, you may prefer an anarchy where people can just get away with crimes, but I prefer the Bill of Rights:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
If that was followed - and it seems like it was - then what's the problem? Just because there's abuse going on doesn't mean that everything - or even a preponderance - is abuse.
- Warrants are an important and useful tool for law enforcement to keep peace and order in a society, and need to be possible to execute when given lawfully.
- Law enforcement (specifically the TLAs) has been abusing various methods of extracting information from individuals, companies, and networks.
Both of these things can be true at the same time. That's what makes this, and most other matters of public policy, complicated. It is adolescent stupidity (or libertarianism, but I repeat myself) to think that we could just do away with the government's ability to execute a lawful warrant without severe repercussions. We can and should fight against their improper use, just as we can and should fight the improper use of the rest of our laws, but just like (most of) the rest of our laws they are there for a reason.
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That's all fine if you are a US citizen and believe that the current US judicial system is fair and reasonable. For anyone else, particularly foreigners who don't want to under US jurisdiction, avoid Gmail.
I wonder if they got anything useful from this? Metadata, for sure, but you would hope that someone involved in Wikileaks would be using strong encryption.
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Hard to argue with that advice - if you don't want to be subject to the laws of another jurisdiction, you should avoid that jurisdiction in general. It's like the bubblegum laws in Singapore - sure, you probably don't agree with it, but if you go there (or keep your bubble-gum there) you should expect to be bound by them.
Google makes no secret of the fact that they are a US company and bound by US laws, though there is an industry-wide effort to convince the legal system that, for data they merely have cust
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What's the alternative?
I mean I could host my own email server but I am afraid I would probably be likely to turn my self in if I was issued a federal warrant for my own details.
So please do tell me who would rather go to jail than hand over details of a client.
Re:And that is why you shouldn't use Gmail (Score:4, Insightful)
they're in bed with the very government
Yeah, nothing says "in bed" like a 2.5 year court battle, followed by immediately notifying the target.
Word of the day: "and" (Score:2)
WikiLeaks Claims Employee's Google Mail, Metadata Seized By US Government
C'mon, it's the 21st century. Even newspapers have started not to write headlines like that any more.
There's this great new word going around. It's called "and." Sometimes it's really good at replacing commas in headlines and makes them easier to parse and less ambiguous. Other useful words include "that" and "were."
WikiLeaks Claims That Employee's Google Mail And Metadata Were Seized By US Government
Capitalising Every Word Is Stupid Too.
April 2012? (Score:2, Interesting)
According the fuzzy image of what appears to be some type of legal document that could have been produced with Word and was apparently filled out with a Sharpie, the event happened in 2012.
Assenge must be desperate in that embassy to have pulled out the really damning stuff!
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Funny to think that Assange could easily be a free man if he simply goes to Sweden and his defense shows that the allegations against him either do not constitute crimes, or do not meet the standards for conviction. I think Mr. Assange will be in that embassy for a very long time.
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Funny to think that Assange could easily be a free man if he simply goes to Sweden and his defense shows that the allegations against him either do not constitute crimes, or do not meet the standards for conviction.
Clearly he does not think the case will go his direction. He might not get a sentence of jail time, but the Swedes would then expel him to his home country, where there are other legal issues pending. Perhaps he should have pulled a "Snowden" and headed for Russia or maybe some South American Communist / Socialist wonderland... His ego got in the way of clearly thinking this problem through.
my opinion of wikileaks just went down (Score:2)
Seriously you work on WikiLeaks and you use an American based email provider? why not just CC them on everything you send and receive and save them the 10 seconds of effort.