WikiLeaks Grand Jury | Prosecutor, Andrew Peterson, Case History

On June 8, 2010, nine days after Bradley Manning was arrested in Iraq, Neil MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, announced he had hired Andrew Peterson as Assistant US Attorney to join the Terrorism and National Security Unit at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Both MacBride and Peterson, are listed in the filings and/or court docket for a motion to stay an 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d) Court Order filed in the Grand Jury criminal investigation of Wikileaks (Case No.: 10GJ3793).

2703(d) refers to the Stored Communications Act, which legally regulates when third party electronic communication service providers may turn over the content or non content information about a customer's electronic communications to other parties.

Amongst the 77 cases (listed below), which Peterson is party to in U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia, are four case numbers that relate to that motion to vacate the a December 14, 2010 Twitter 2703(d) Court Order.

On December 14, 2010 Theresa Buchanan, a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, ordered Twitter to turn over to the U.S. Government, the non-content communication information of Julian Assange; WikiLeaks; Bradley Manning; Jacob Appelbaum, who is a developer for the Tor project; Rop Gonggrijp, described in court papers as a Dutch activist and businessman; and Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of the Icelandic parliament.

On January 5, 2011, the Court ordered that the original December 14, 2010 Court Order be unsealed, which thereby authorizing Twitter to disclose its existence to its subscribers.

On January 4, 2012, District Judge Liam O'Grady denied the petitioners' motion to stay the original December 14, 2010 Court Order and ruled that Twitter hand over the information.

The docket and public filings for the Appelbaum (Case No. 1:11-dm-00003-TCB -LO-1), Gonggrijp (Case No. 1:11-dm-00003-TCB -LO-2), Jonsdottir (Case No. 1:11-dm-00003-TCB -LO-3), and Twitter (Case No. 1:11-dm-00003-TCB -LO-4) motion to vacate the December 14, 2010 2703(d) Court Order can be found here.

Within those filings is included another docket of secret 2703d orders still under seal in the WikiLeaks Grand Jury investigation.

Two additional case numbers: vis. 1:11-ec-00056-TRJ-1, for another 18 U.S.C. 2703(d) Court Order issued to Google on June 10, 2011; and 1:11-sw-00454-TRJ-1, for a Search Warrant Issued to Google on August 24, 2011 are also highlighted and italicized below.

A 2703(d) order requires "specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of a wire or electronic communication, or the records or other information sought, are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation."

A search warrant, on the other hand, must specifically describe probable cause for evidence of a crime. The case docket and filing (the ones that are public) for 1:11-ec-00056-TRJ-1, regarding the 18 U.S.C. 2703(d) Court Order issued to Google on June 10, 2011 is viewable here, and for 1:11-sw-00454-TRJ-1, regarding a Search Warrant Issued to Google on August 24, 2011 here.

According to the testimony of Special Agent Mark Mander, CCIU at Bradley Manning's Article 32 Pretrial Hearing, the FBI is targeting seven civilians for criminal activity related to the U.S. investigation of WikiLeaks.

Those civilians, Mander testifies "involve in certain aspects the founders, owners, or managers of WikiLeaks."

Defense: Whom else did you uncover doing wrongdoing?

Mander: Seven other civilians. The FBI is potentially involved. I do not know what the FBI has determined.

Defense: Do they include the founders, owners, or managers of WikiLeaks? Was WikiLeaks in this case?

Mander: Yes they are involved in certain aspects.

Defense: Is it your determination, would you agree that my client would have been unable to do this by himself?

Mander: Depends on charge. "Something by himself"...other charges require interaction with others.

Defense: Did my client possess the ability to upload from his cubical in Iraq?

Mander: Yes. He could have upload to multiple sites.

Defense: Would he not also require the cooperation of others to post to (indecipherable)?

Mander: Not if he owned site. Mr. Lamo contacted CCIU about Mr. Katz boasting about helping to decrypt. Lamo contacted CCIU about an unknown individual who was chatting with someone else. Don't know if he ever met that person.

Defense: How was he aware?

Mander: I am not aware.

In October 2011, Julia Angwin reported in the Wall Street Journal that she had viewed a secret order dated January 4, 2011 ordering Google order to hand over "the IP address from which Mr. Appelbaum logged into his gmail.com account and the email and IP addresses of the users with whom he communicated dating back to Nov. 1, 2009. It isn't clear whether Google fought the order or turned over documents."

Angwin says it wasn't "clear whether Google fought the order or turned over documents." According to sources familiar with the case, "both Google and Sonic pressed for the right to inform Mr. Appelbaum of the secret court orders."

The case history, meaning whether or not it pertains to the WikiLeaks Grand Jury investigation, and the identity of the Google subscriber in question for the June 10, 2011 secret order and the August 24, 2011 search warrant is not know by this writer, but the only other Stored Communication Act filings in Peterson's case history are for the Twitter 2703(d) filings.

The 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d) June 10, 2011 Court Order and the August 24, 2011 search warrant issued to Google related to the same subscriber, because they are referred to together by MacBride and Peterson in the Government's second filing under 1:11-ec-00056-TRJ-1.

In that filing the Government asks for clarification in opposition to Google's motion to unseal to authorize the search provider to disclose the secret order to its subscriber.

On February 28, 2012, this Court entered orders in 1:11 EC 56 and 1:11 SW 454 authorizing Google to "deliver to its subscriber" a redacted copy of the search warrant filed under that number and a copy of the Court's June 20, 2011 Order issued pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d).

In the Government's recounting of the case for the filing, MacBride and Peterson cite the Court's February 28, 2012 ruling to unseal the secret order to the subscriber:

"It is difficult to imagine circumstances in which this Google subscriber, as described by the government in its brief, has not assumed government access to this account and acted accordingly." In re a 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d) Order issued to Google, Inc. on June 10, 2011, No. 1:11 EC 56 (E.D. Va. Feb. 28,2011) (emphasis added [by MacBride and Peterson]).

The Government goes on to say the Court found "that Google's subscriber was aware of the government's investigation and likely assumed government access to the account."

The Government also argued that the sealing be extended while the Government and Google clarify their oppositional understanding of the unsealing order. Google understood the Court's February 28, 2012 order to mean that the secret order to be revealed to any person, although Google only intended to share it with the subscriber. While the Government understood the unsealing to pertained to the individual subscriber alone.

On March 26, 2012 the Court ruled that the secret order could be unsealed and that the subscriber was at liberty to disclose its contents to others.

The Court ruled similarly the same day regarding permissible disclosure for the Search Warrant Issued to Google on August 24, 2011

ObamaLeaks

Among Peterson's 70 other cases, dominated mostly with criminal prosecutions for possession of crack cocaine and heroin; armed robbery while brandishing a weapon; illegal entry in to the United States after deportation; and Social Security fraud; is found the U.S. espionage case against Jeffrey Alexander Sterling, the CIA officer the Obama administration accuses of disclosing classified information to a reporter.

Charles Savage writes that the journalist in question is the New York Times reporter, James Risen. And, since respect for sources at the New York Times is inversely proportional to its ability to cover its ass while taking credit, Savage adds:

That material did not appear in The Times. The indictment says that the journalist worked on an article about the program in 2003, but the newspaper decided not to publish it after government officials told editors that such a disclosure would jeopardize national security.

In his call for an Independent Counsel to investigate recent classified leaks by the Obama administration, the Republican Senator from Arizona, John McCain, noted the hypocrisy of the current administration's prosecutions of low-level personnel like Bradley Manning, Jeffrey Sterling and John Kiriakou, while leaking highly classified information to bolster the president's national security marketing persona in preparation for the November presidential election.

"The fact that this administration would aggressively pursue leaks perpetrated by a 22-year-old Army private in the Wikileaks matter and former CIA employees in other leaks cases but apparently sanction leaks made by senior administration officials for political purposes is simply unacceptable."

At a June 8 press conference, House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan and antagonist of civic society and the press, said that both the FBI and the Department of Justice's National Security Division "indicated they could potentially be implicated in the leaks."

Rogers added, "Just today, the CIA informed the (House Intelligence Committee) that it cannot respond to our request for information regarding the leaks, a very troubling event indeed."

An official at the Department of Justice, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, said "some officials in the department's national security division recused themselves from one of the leak probes but that the department overall was investigating," vis. itself.

As on June 19, 2012 Andrew Peterson is also representing the U.S. Government in its case against MegaUpload (Case No. 1:12-cr-00003-LO-1 USA v. Dotcom et al - 1:12-cr-00003-LO-9 USA v. Dotcom et al)

*Source Pacer document system for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia