OntheWilderSide

Note from KW: This story shows the tactics the government is going to use against you — you environmentalist, you activist, you peacenik — if you get in their way…

(excerpt from) The Guardian UK
WikiLeaks demands Google and Facebook unseal US subpoenas
Call comes after revelation that US has tried to force Twitter to release WikiLeaks members’ private details
Saturday 8 January 2011

WikiLeaks has demanded that Google and Facebook unseal any US subpoenas they may have received after it emerged that a court in Virginia had ordered Twitter secretly to hand over details of accounts and use of the micro-blogging site by five figures associated with the group, including Julian Assange.

Amid strong evidence that a US grand jury has begun a wideranging trawl for details of what networks and accounts WikiLeaks used to communicate with Bradley Manning, the US serviceman accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of sensitive government cables, some of those named in the subpoena said they would fight disclosure.

“Today, the existence of a secret US government grand jury espionage investigation into WikiLeaks was confirmed for the first time as a subpoena was brought into the public domain,” WikiLeaks said in a statement today.

The writ, approved by a court in Virginia in December, demands that the San Franscisco based micro-blogging site hand over all details of accounts and private messaging on Twitter – including the computers and networks – used by five individuals.

Those include WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Manning, Icelandic MP Brigitta Jonsdottir and Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp. Three of those – Gonggrijp, Assange and Jonsdottir – were named as “producers” of the first significant leak from the US cables cache, a video of an Apache helicopter attack that killed civilians and journalist in Baghdad.

…It also ordered Twitter not to notify the targets of the subpoena, which the company successfully challenged.

The emergence of the Twitter subpoena – which was unsealed after a legal challenge by the company – emerged after WikiLeaks announced that it believed other US Internet companies had also been ordered to hand over information about its activities…

The subpoena itself is an unusual one known as a 2703(d) which a recent Federal appeals court ruled was insufficient to order the disclosure of the contents of communication. Significantly, however, that ruling is binding in neither Virginia – where it was issued – or in San Francisco where Twitter is based…

Gonggrijp praised Twitter for notifying him and others that the US had subpoenaed his details. “It appears that Twitter, as a matter of policy, does the right thing in wanting to inform their users when one of these comes in,” Gonggrijp said. “Heaven knows how many places have received similar subpoenas and just quietly submitted all they had on me.”

For Kimberly’s youtube song/tribute to Julian Assange, go the video:
here

P.S. From KW: I knew that a lot of this energy and attack from the US was about that footage of the helicopter shooting. That was a harsh scene, and an injustice so wrong, our emotions tend to want to disbelieve or forget it. People who care about peace and nonviolence should probably show that video over and over again. It is the face of war. Video: here. If you can’t watch the video…help end the war.

Filed under: News Tagged: | 2703(d), Bradley Manning, Brigitta Jonsdottir, Criminal Justice, Eric Holder, facebook, Facebook privacy, Google, government spying, grand juries, Jacob Applebaum, journalism, Julian Assange, on-line privacy, Rop Gonggrijp, Twitter, Wikileaks