Technology giant Google has revealed it handed over information on three WikiLeaks staff members to the US government, but kept it secret for nearly three years.
The whistleblowing site has now written to Google boss Eric Schmidt complaining that despite Google receiving the warrants in March 2012, the search engine firm only revealed the existence of the order to WikiLeaks last month.
The letter, written by a lawyer representing WikiLeaks, asks Google to list all the material it provided to the FBI, adding that the site was “astonished and disturbed” that Google waited three years to notify them, potentially depriving them of their ability to protect their right to “privacy, association and freedom from illegal searches”.
Google revealed the news to WikiLeaks on Christmas Eve – traditionally a quiet period for news – telling the firm that they had provided a raft of digital data on the three staff members, including all emails and IP addresses related to them.
The subjects of the warrants were WikiLeaks’ investigations editor Sarah Harrison – a British citizen – as well as spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson and senior editor Joseph Farrell.
When informing WikiLeaks of the warrants, Google said it had been unable to do so earlier as a gagging order had been imposed. The search engine firm said these had now been lifted, but did not specify when.
Ms Harrison told the Guardian: “Knowing the FBI read the words I wrote to console my mother over a death in the family makes me feel sick.
“Neither Google nor the US government are living up to their own laws or rhetoric in privacy or press protections.”
It has been revealed that the court orders issued were so broad that it covered almost all communication sent and received by the three WikiLeaks staff.
They included all email correspondence; sent, received, draft and even deleted emails, as well as records of other online activities.
The court order is believed to have been part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the website following the publication of hundreds of thousands of US secrets by WikiLeaks in 2010. These were passed to WikiLeaks by then army private Chelsea Manning – who is now in military prison.
WikiLeaks said in a statement on their website it believes this latest move is a sign the US is looking to build a case against WikiLeaks staff.
The site’s founder Julian Assange is still living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after being granted political asylum by the South American country, following Swedish attempts to have him extradited to face sexual assault charges.
Mr Assange called the warrants a “serious, and seriously wrong attempt to build an alleged ‘conspiracy’ case against me and my staff”.
He added the real conspiracy was “Google rolling over yet again to help the US government violate the constitution – by taking over journalists’ private emails in response to give-us-everything warrants.”
In the first six months of 2014, Google received almost 32,000 data requests from governments, an increase of 15% when compared with the second half of 2013, according to the site’s own report on government data requests.
Source Article from https://uk.news.yahoo.com/wikileaks-anger-over-google-warrant-133113749.html
WikiLeaks anger over Google warrant
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