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The International Manhunt for WikiLeaks

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One of the things DOJ is protecting from FOIA in Electronic Privacy Information Center’s suit is information other governments have shared with the US on the investigation.

According to FBI’s David Harvey, this includes classified information from foreign governments.

(45) E.O. 13526, § 1.4(b) authorizes the classification of foreign government information. E.O. 13526, § 6.1(s) defines foreign government information as: “(1) information provided to the United States Government by a foreign government or governments, an international organization of governments, or any element thereof, with the expectation that the information, the source of the information, or both, are to be held in confidence; (2) information produced by the United States Government pursuant to or as a result of a joint arrangement with a foreign government or governments, or an international organization of governments, or any element thereof, requiring that the information, the arrangement, or both, are to be held in confidence; or (3) information received and treated as ‘foreign government information’ under the terms of a predecessor order.”

(46) Many foreign governments do not officially acknowledge the existence of some of their intelligence and security services, or the scope of their activities or the sensitive information generated by them. The free exchange of information between United States intelligence and law enforcement services and their foreign counterparts is predicated upon the understanding that these liaisons, and information exchanged between them, must be kept in confidence.

(47) The release of official United States Government documents that show the existence of a confidential relationship with a foreign government reasonably could be expected to strain relations between the United States and the foreign governments and lead to diplomatic, political, or economic retaliations. A breach of this relationship can be expected to have at least a chilling effect on the free flow of vital information to the United States intelligence and law enforcement agencies, which may substantially reduce their effectiveness. Although the confidential relationship of the United States with certain countries may be widely reported, they are not officially acknowledged. (48) Disclosure of such a relationship predictably will result in the careful analysis and possible compromise of the information by hostile intelligence services. The hostile service may be able to uncover friendly foreign intelligence gathering operations directed against it or its allies. This could lead to the neutralization of friendly allied intelligence activities or methods or the death of live sources, cause embarrassment to the supplier of the information, or result in economic or diplomatic retaliation against both the United States and the supplier of the information.

(49) Even if the government from which certain information is received is not named in or identifiable from the material it supplies, the danger remains that if the information were to be made public, the originating government would likely recognize the information as material it supplied in confidence. Thereafter, it would be reluctant to entrust the handling of its information to the discretion of the United States.

(50) The types of classified information provided by foreign government intelligence components can be categorized as: (a) information that identifies a named foreign government and detailed information provided by that foreign government; (b) documents received from a named foreign government intelligence agency and classified “Secret” by that agency; and (c) information that identifies by name, an intelligence component of a specific foreign government, an official of the foreign government, and information provided by that component official to the FBI.

[snip]

(51) The cooperative exchange of intelligence information between the foreign governments and the FBI was, and continues to be, with the express understanding that the information will be kept classified and not released to the public. Disclosure of the withheld information would violate the FBI’s promise of confidentiality. Read more →

WikiLeaks: Court Upholds US Subpoena For Twitter Records

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In a 21 page opinion, US Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan of the Eastern District of Virginia District Court has just granted the United States Department of Justice subpoena demand for records in the WikiLeaks investigation.

Three people associated with WikiLeaks – Jacob Appelbaum, Birgitta Jonsdottir, and Rop Gonggrijp – had petitioned the court to vacate the subpoena and to unseal the court pleadings. The court held:

For the foregoing reasons, petitioners’ Motion to Vacate is DENIED. Petitioners’ Motion to Unseal is DENIED as to docket 10- gj-3793, and GRANTED as to the 1:11-dm-00003 docket, with the exception of the government attorney’s email address in Twitter’s Motion for Clarification (Dkt. 24), which shall be redacted. Petitioners’ request for public docketing of the material within 10-gj-3793 shall be taken under consideration. An Order shall follow.

The three WikiLeaks individuals had argued the subpoena violated constitutional protections for free speech and association; the court disagreed. Appelbaum, Gonggrijp and Jonsdottir have already stated they will appeal.

You can read the full opinion here. I will be updating the post as I read the decision.

In December of last year, the US government, upon ex parte motion, moved the EDVA Court to enter a sealed Order (“Twitter Order”) pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d) of the Stored Communications Act, which governs government access to customer records stored by a service provider. The Twitter Order, which was unsealed on January 5, 2010, at the request of Twitter, required Twitter to turn Read more →