Jacob Appelbaum, Wikileaks Volunteer, Detained At U.S. Border For Three Hours

Jacob Appelbaum, a Seattle-based volunteer hacker for Wikileaks, touched down at Newark Internation Airport in New Jersey on his way back from Holland last Thursday, and was promptly whisked away by U.S. customs officials for a "random" security search.

The hacker told CNET he was interrogated as to the whereabouts of his boss -- Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has gone underground since the U.S. government announced it was hunting him -- as well as "his attitudes to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and on the philosophy behind Wikileaks."

Appelbaum's laptop was briefly confiscated, but investigators kept his three cell phones.

Sources told CNET that Appelbaum declined to comment on any Wikileaks-related questions without a lawyer. Still, the investigators managed to briefly confiscate his laptop, and kept his phones.

The three-hour detainment was keeping Appelbaum from the DefCon hacker conference in Las Vegas, where he gave a speech Saturday defending Wikileaks' commitment to exposing private government information.

"All governments are on a continuum of tyranny," he said (h/t The Independent). "In the U.S., a cop with a gun can commit the most heinous crime and be given the benefit of the doubt. In the U.S., we don't have censorship, but we do have collaborating news organizations."

Comments

[Steelsil]

01:58 PM on 08/05/2010

Wikileaks states that its "primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations."

[Steelsil]

01:53 PM on 08/05/2010

WikiLeaks or Wikileaks is an international organization based in Sweden[2] that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of otherwise unavailable documents while preserving the anonymity of sources. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press.[1] Within a year of its launch, the site claimed a database that had grown to more than 1.2 million documents.[3]

The organization has described itself as having been founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the U.S., Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.[1] Newspaper articles and The New Yorker magazine (June 7, 2010) describe Julian Assange, an Australian journalist and Internet activist, as its director.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks

[ouroborous]

01:21 AM on 08/05/2010

If you are concerned with the way this is going (and you should be, because this is being used as a trial balloon to justify the *assassination* by the US government of *journalists* who publish material that is *embarrassing* or politically inconvenient -- think about that for a moment, and what it means when you claim you have "free speech"), here is what you can do:

1. Download and torrent the WikiLeaks documents RIGHT AWAY.
2. Download and torrent the WikiLeaks "insurance" document RIGHT AWAY. (Google it to get a link; only download the one that's on WikiLeaks' site; there are lots of punters trying to muck up the works).

Note to our NSA overlords: I don't work for WikiLeaks in any way, nor do I have any idea what's in the "insurance" document.

It's up to all of us to remain vigilant against our government's rampant (and rapidly increasing) abuses of power, and sharing information that they want to keep secret is one way to do that. A nice thing about plausible deniability: you don't have to read the documents to torrent them, so you can legally claim that you knew nothing of their contents. Indeed, with the "insurance" document, you CAN'T read it (until, and only if, they take down WL or Assange, at which point they've claimed they'll release the AES256 password to the world).

[chouteau47]

12:07 PM on 08/05/2010

Censorship during a war is not anything new. Soldiers have been aware of unspeakable actions during war throughout history. Many are brought to light after the war has ended and this is when people back home determine that war is evil and especially when the unspeakable happens to civilians living to close to the battle. The problem is people also have short memories and march off to the next war as long as its not in their backyard. This isn't all about free speech and the right of hackers to publish the results of their deeds, its only a side show for the entertainment of Wikileak fans. History will keep on repeating itself during the next war whenever that may be, censorship is a weapon to win a war just like all the other weapons. Don't take the advise of this comment, its nothing but delusional advise from someone that thinks whatever he does on his computer in the safety of his home will change how wars are fought.

[RonK Michigan]

09:02 AM on 08/04/2010

Oh My God!!!!! How horrible.

I live in Michigan - I have crossed back/forth more times than I can count - At times, I have been "detained" by Customs for hours on end......
The agents are instructed to question every 15th, 25th, etc. visitor (their computers keep track)
One thing is absolutely for certain, make a wise assed/snippy answer to a question they ask & you will guaranteed discover "it's you turn in the barrel".

Ronk’s - Steven Wright Quote Du-Jour:
“If going to church makes you a Christian, then standing in a garage makes you a car”

[amber15]

04:48 PM on 08/03/2010

Julian Assange wants the Pentagon's help.

His secretive WikiLeaks website tells The Daily Beast it is making an urgent request to the Defense Department for help in reviewing 15,000 still-secret American military reports to remove the names of Afghan civilians and others who might be endangered when the website makes the reports public.

The request follows statements of regret from Assange and others at WikiLeaks that the site may have unintentionally endangered Afghan civilians with its first massive document dump - 72,000 leaked classified American military reports from Afghanistan that revealed the names and home villages of hundreds of local informants who cooperated with American forces there.

'Looks like everyone makes mistakes'.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-03/wikileaks-julian-assange-admiral-mike-mullen-afghan-war-logs-daniel-schmitt-germany-joint-chiefs-of-staff-pentagon-marine-colonel-david-lapin/

[stephenlight]

05:36 PM on 08/04/2010

He is a weasel. Funny how he trotted out all the "MANY" US war crimes...wonder why he did not cite any of these from the same documents?

A June 23, 2007 entry cites an article by the BBC Monitoring service that reads:

Security officials today said that they have discovered the decapitated bodies of six truck drivers who supplied food items to the Afghan and foreign forces stationed in Sangin District of southern Helmand province. …Qari Yusof Ahmadi [the Taleban spokesman] confirmed the killing of five drivers, saying that they had repeatedly warned drivers to stop supplying foodstuffs and fuel to the foreign forces.

Citing an article by the Associated Press, an April 22, 2007 entry reads: “Assailants abducted and beheaded an Afghan intelligence service employee [in] Ghazni province. According to reports[,] an intelligence service employee was invited to a home, then kidnapped and beheaded Sunday by the Taliban…”

This man is a despicable anti-US weasel. Arrest cannot come soon enough.

[Dan Rosenthal]

02:34 PM on 08/03/2010

18 USC 793: Whoever, for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the national defense with...reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation, copies, takes, makes, or obtains, or attempts to copy, take, make, or obtain, any...document, writing, or note of anything connected with the national defense...shall be fined...or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

(G)If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the foregoing provisions of this section, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties...shall be subject to the punishment provided...
--
What's so hard to understand about this? It doesn't matter that they had good intentions. It doesn't matter that the information SHOULD have been transparent anyway. It doesn't matter that the administration has completely failed its promise of greater transparency. It doesn't matter that many of these documents are worthless.

Everybody involved had ample opportunity to realize that what they were doing was a felony, and they did it anyway. Complaining about the consequences is childish. I mean seriously, what did they THINK was going to happen, that the US Government would just laugh it off and not investigate at all? I mean come on, when a child knows doing something is wrong, but does it anyway, you don't applaud them for it.

[Eris23]

03:22 PM on 08/03/2010

What's hard to understand is the case that what was released somehow was done by those with "reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation." In addition, Assange is not a US citizen. Appelbaum merely does technical work for the servers and is not involved in obtaining or handling information.

Make your case already. You can cite this statute until you are blue in the face, but you still have yet to show how it applies to anyone involved. As I said to you elsewhere, given the lack of arrest warrants issued by the US government for either Appelbaum or Assange, how likely do you think it is that this above statute has any relevance to what occurred? It's a rhetorical question, btw.

[ouroborous]

12:54 AM on 08/05/2010

The irony of course is that as soon as arrest warrants are issued, the Obama administration -- which is somewhat to the right of Bush when it comes to transparency and civil liberties -- has made an implicit commitment to handle this in the court system. And once they've done THAT, all sorts of unpleasant cans of worms open up -- whether or not the information details any crimes (if the WikiLeaks site owners had a reasonable belief that they were reporting on a crime, they would have been criminally negligent in NOT releasing that information), whether or not simply re-posting operation reports is illegal, and the entire overarching Constitution-smothering "defense" apparatus that Bush/Cheney put in place and Obama has vastly expanded.

So, don't expect to see this play out in the courts. Most likely is that Assange will just "disappear" at some point and show up in Bagram or something...

[KIampfbeobachter]

05:54 PM on 08/03/2010

Democracy dies behind closed doors
An American judge a couple of years ago

[hoobit]

11:42 AM on 08/03/2010

The thousands and thousands of documents 'released' by Wikileaks are items that were ALL logged...logged WITHOUT *any* 'filter' applied to determine if they [the docs] held verifiable information or not; whether the docs were factual or not.

Much like at your local 911 Center, ALL in-coming info is logged. If someone calls in a car accident, it is logged. If someone reports an alien spacecraft landing and subsequent abduction, it is logged. If someone reports that their laptop was stolen, it is logged. If someone reports Mr. Doe is 'messing around' with small children, that, too, is logged.

When the information comes in, it is ALL logged...*then* it is investigated -- each item [called-in/logged/reported] is *then* paid attention to, to verify if it is credible, or not; if it is *factual*, or not. Just because something is 'logged in', does *not* mean it it is truthful and/or factual; if that were the case, Mr. Doe would be strung up just because he was 'reported' by Ms. Jones who was angry that he'd rebuffed her advances towards him.

I'm all for transparency and honesty upon which we can form our debate(s); what Wikileaks did was --and is-- NOT honest. To present *unfiltered*, raw 'information' AS IF it were *all* verified AND factual, is not only disingenuous, it's downright criminal. Think about it.

[ouroborous]

12:56 AM on 08/05/2010

You're so right! Far better to let The Authorities filter and vet it for us. Then THEY can tell us what we "need to know," and we'll have more transparency than we know what to do with!

/snark

You do understand that "reporting" involves more than just regurgitating the secrets that those in power WANT you to tell, right?

[hjalmar]

11:29 AM on 08/03/2010

Assange interviewed by Amy on DN today:

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/3/julian_assange_responds_to_increasing_us

[mikesw]

10:51 AM on 08/03/2010

If the US had better protection and procedures for whistleblowers, much of the US material in Wikileaks not be there.

The problem is not that the US government has failed to perfectly shield itself and its policies from scrutiny, the problem is that it has failed to find ways of protecting the dissenters with integrity within and taking their objections seriously.

[Eris23]

01:06 PM on 08/03/2010

"If the US had better protection and procedures for whistleblowers, much of the US material in Wikileaks not be there."

That's what people keep ignoring here. If it weren't for governments that do not actually protect whistle blowers nor act on their information, coupled with a mainstream media that is all too complacent in regurgitating government talking points, and even cutting deals with politicians to delay the release of information so as not to affect their campaign, Wikileaks would have no need to exist.

[mikesw]

10:45 AM on 08/03/2010

I still don't understand why it was US customs who questioned Appelbaum and not the FBI. Is our border becoming some gray zone where constitutional guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure are weakened?

[Eris23]

01:09 PM on 08/03/2010

Indeed.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/04/border-agents-c/

[ouroborous]

12:59 AM on 08/05/2010

"Is our border becoming some gray zone where constitutional guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure are weakened?"

"becoming?"

With all due respect, if you think the border is just "becoming" that gray zone, you haven't been paying much attention for about the past ten years. You literally take your life in your own hands every time you interact with TSA agents. God help you if you have a foreign-sounding last name, or have been negatively portrayed in the news, or just piss off some meathead with a badge and a can of mace.

[javaman]

09:03 AM on 08/03/2010

"Excuse me young man, do you have your papers?"

[chouteau47]

08:55 AM on 08/03/2010

Why did Applebaum lawyer up when he was questioned about Wikileaks? I read alot of comments on what Wikileak is by people that don't know, but the people behind it all scatter and hide when faced with the consequences of their actions. If the intents are so pure then be as transparent as you preach. If the government is the enemy then the best work of Wikileak should be done in daylight.

[javaman]

09:04 AM on 08/03/2010

You're a fool.

[chouteau47]

12:03 PM on 08/03/2010

ok if you're so smart then you read the 90,000 documents

[Eris23]

10:09 AM on 08/03/2010

It's really simple. The reason you have Miranda warnings when arrested is so that you aren't coerced into incriminating yourself, which would violate your 5th amendment rights. If you haven't been arrested, you do not have to talk to the police. With Wikileaks, particularly given the document that was leaked exposing that the US government is working on a psyops campaign to destroy it, it is beyond obvious that the government is looking for any excuse to shut it down. Part of that would certainly entail arresting people who are essential to its maintenance and function. So, if pulled aside by law enforcement for questioning, it is quite intelligent to assert one's rights and refuse to answer questions unless one's attorney is present, since the attorney will prevent you from answering questions that may incriminate yourself even if you haven't done anything wrong.

Why is it that so many people have issues with others knowing and asserting their constitutional rights?

[chouteau47]

11:16 AM on 08/03/2010

The government will shut it down or make it trivial if the people behind Wikileaks continue to run for cover to protect their assets. A little jail time is appropriate for an anti war protest. Applebaum asserted one constitutional right but at the expense of giving up the fight for another constitutional right, freedom of the press. Probably the only press this guy is interested in is the freedom to write his autobiography at the age of 30.

[Iemitsu]

08:39 AM on 08/03/2010

I am 100% in agreement with NoHitHair. America was founded by a dedicated group of men who all broke existing British laws. They were guilty of treason, destruction of property and innumerable capital crimes. "I would remind you that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice." A 21st Patrick Henry (would that we had one) would quickly be kidnapped, taken in secret to Guantanamo, and tortured.

[bccmeteorites]

08:57 PM on 08/04/2010

fanned and faved.

[NoHitHair]

07:07 AM on 08/03/2010

It is remarkable to me how many of you fail to understand the purpose of a law. There are countless comments that purport that a law was broken, therefore Wikileaks acted criminally and should be punished.

A law is a tool of the people who use it and it, like everything else that exists, is not perfect. There have been many completely unjust laws throughout history that have resulted in horrific actions due to their blind followers. The imprisonment and eradication of Jews in Germany during World War 2 was done in concurrence with the law.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke several times about the necessity of breaking a law if the law itself is unjust and immoral. In fact, if it were not for the lawbreaking and non-violent actions of the black community in the 50s and 60s, it's unlikely we would've seen desegregation so soon.

If we all follow whatever law we're told to without questioning it, what prohibits the lawmaker from exploiting our trust?

[bccmeteorites]

08:58 PM on 08/04/2010

faved.

[bccmeteorites]

07:02 AM on 08/03/2010

Obama is also pulling equipment and bases from Iraq

The Obama administration isn't just cutting the number of troops from Iraq.

The amount of equipment and number of bases in Iraq are also shrinking as the U.S. prepares to end combat operations this month and have all troops out of the country by the end of next year.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/08/obama-is-also-pulling-equipment-and-bases-from-iraq/1

Translation for the layman.

OK people listen up. WIKILEAKS' impending release of secret documents detailing atrocious war crimes is causing us to clean our hotel rooms and exit Iraq. But this time instead of a vulnerable rinky dink building with a few hundred plants like in Iran, we are leaving a larger more complex heavily fortified facility called "the green zone" to make sure the religious freedom fighters don't force us and our interests out of the region. It's going to be like Iran with a dictatorship puppet regime masquerading as a democracy, but this is what Iraq wants and needs to secure freedom and liberty. You're either with us or against us.

[blutigeroo]

07:57 AM on 08/03/2010

The wikileaks war logs exposed the war in Afghanistan-NOT Iraq although numerous war crimes that have been committed in Iraq have been exposed before but this one focused on Afghanistan only.
2008 SOFA Agreement-the (illusion of ) "withdrawal" from Iraq cannot be attributed to either BO or GB--it was the Iraqi govt that forced it upon America.
The two are UNRELATED.

[bccmeteorites]

11:16 AM on 08/03/2010

There is an unmistakable continuum with both theaters of operation. In other words not much of a demarcation line, politically and strategically. If you want to believe that- "it was the Iraqi govt that forced it upon America" and that it actually has an independent autonomous government, keep believing it. But it's not true.

[stephenlight]

05:34 PM on 08/04/2010

Detail the atrocious war crimes. Should be easy as there are so many.....oh here are some:

A May 17, 2007 report, again citing BBC Monitoring, says that the Taliban snuck into the house of a man accused of being a spy, kidnapped him, and then beheaded him. “Taleban spokesman Qari Yusof Ahmadi said the man was beheaded after founding [sic] him guilty of spying for the foreign troops.”

A July 29, 2007 intelligence report says: “A noted tribal elder was decapitated by unidentified gunmen in Yahyakhel District of the southeastern Paktika Province, a police spokesman said on Sunday.” He was “was the third tribal elder to be slain by the rebels during the last two months in Paktika, where the security situation has been on a nosedive.” The Taliban was blamed for the attack.

This was reported on September 27, 2009: “Insurgents under the control of Bashir Canahat, who is a Commander for Ghulam Yahya, beheaded Abdul Latif, under the impression that he worked for the government. He does not work for the government.”

June 29, 2007 The headless body of a translator with foreign troops, kidnapped two days back, has been found in Kharwar District of central Logar Province, officials said today. … Taleban spokesman Zabihollah Mojahed claimed responsibility for slaughtering the man.

[bccmeteorites]

08:31 PM on 08/04/2010

We have probably committed more war crimes in Guantanamo Bay alone than all other nations combined in all wars and skirmishes. There is no evidence to show otherwise. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.