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Tag: Wikileaks

  • Internet Legal Trends to Watch. Part 2A: More on Wikileaks and Online Privacy

    In previous postings in this Internet Legal Trends to Watch series, I discussed Online Privacy and Wikileaks. A development in the Wikileaks story has some interesting overlap with the question of how much of our personal information is available online.

    Evidently, the federal government subpoenaed information from the Twitter accounts of Julian Assange and other Wikileaks associates. When a private individual or organization tries to obtain your anonymous online identity or online information, you must be notified of the subpoena request so you have an opportunity to “quash” the subpoena and keep your information private. In the Wikileaks case, the government got the subpoena with a gag order prohibiting Twitter from notifying Assange and the other individuals of the subpoena request.

    We only know this because Twitter successfully fought to remove the gag order and then informed Assange of the subpoena request. The disturbing part of the story is that the government likely subpoenaed other social networks used by Assange and that those social networks may have handed over personal information without making any attempts to fight the gag order.

    Reporter, Barton Gellman, offers a more detailed overview in the article “Twitter, Wikileaks, and the Broken Market for Consumer Privacy”.

  • Internet Legal Trends to Watch. Part 2: Wikileaks Raises Questions about Rights of Internet Journalists

    One of the many questions triggered by the Wikileaks story is whether laws that protect journalists and the print media apply to bloggers and others who provide newsgathering services via the internet. The trend is that disseminating news through a blog or other new media forum does not disqualify you from treatment as a journalist. If you act like a journalist, the courts are more inclined to treat you like a journalist.

    The government’s desire to prosecute Julian Assange over Wikileaks’ release of thousands of classified documents could introduce additional nuances into the treatment of internet journalists. The government is considering prosecuting Assange under the Espionage Act which broadly criminalizes willfully retaining or communicating information relating to the national defense when done with knowledge that the communication could damage the United States.

    Even though U.S. newspapers and journalists regularly publish stories and documents based on leaked government information (e.g., think the New York Times publication of the Pentagon Papers), the Espionage Act has never been used to indict a journalist. This is primarily in deference to the First Amendment. Several commentators have distinguished the actions of Assange and Wikileaks from the actions of more established and traditional media. Nevertheless, if Assange is prosecuted with anti-espionage laws, what does that mean for the news media’s reporting of defense topics?