FBI: Give Me Back My Email With @WikiLeaks

Google took almost three years to disclose to WikiLeaks it had handed over emails belonging to three of its staffers to the U.S. government under a secret search warrant, the Guardian reports. [1] The subjects of the warrants were WikiLeaks investigations editor Sarah Harrison, WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson, and WikiLeaks senior editor Joseph Farrell.

The court orders cast a data net so wide as to ensnare virtually all digital communications originating from or sent to the three, the Guardian says. Google was told to hand over the contents of all their emails, including those sent and received.

Just Foreign Policy’s Policy Director Robert Naiman has communicated by email with all three of the named WikiLeaks staffers over a period of years using his Gmail account. Therefore, based on the Guardian report, Naiman believes that Google may have supplied the FBI with Naiman’s email correspondence with the three WikiLeaks staffers.

Alexander Abdo of the American Civil Liberties Union said the warrants were “shockingly broad” in their catch-all wording. “This is basically ‘Hand over anything you’ve got on this person’,” he said. “That’s troubling as it’s hard to distinguish what WikiLeaks did in its disclosures from what major newspapers do every single day in speaking to government officials and publishing still-secret information.”

Urge the FBI to destroy all copies of correspondence between Just Foreign Policy and WikiLeaks and pledge to refrain from spying on correspondence between Just Foreign Policy and WikiLeaks in the future by signing our petition.

References:
1. “WikiLeaks demands answers after Google hands staff emails to US government,” Ed Pilkington and Dominic Rushe, the Guardian, January 25, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/25/wikileaks-google-staff-emails-us-government