US calls in ISPs in Wikileaker hunt

THE US GOVERNMENT is using a special kind of court order in its pursuit of Wikileaks supporter and TOR developer Jacob Appelbaum, and is forcing ISPs including Google to hand over information from his personal accounts.

The Wall Street Journal (paywall) reports that Google along with US ISP Sonic have been approached by the government with court orders, which are grounded in the US Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Sonic went to court to challenge the order, apparently, but lost. According to Sonic's CEO, Dave Jasper, challenging the order was "rather expensive" but "the right thing to do".

The court orders request the email addresses of people Mr Appelbaum corresponded with for the past two years and, according to sources, both firms requested the right to let Applebaum, who has not been charged with anything, know what is happening.

It is not unreasonable to suggest that Appelbaum, who develops the TOR anonymising service, might have had his suspicions, especially since earlier this year the micro-blogging service Twitter was fighting requests to hand over its records on Wikileaks supporting account holders, including Applebaum's.

The Wall Street Journal has seen the court orders and explains that the new orders seek the same information as the requests made to Twitter. The Google document is dated much earlier this year, 4 January, and requests the IP addresses used by Appelbaum when he logged into his Gmail account, as well as those belonging to the people he emailed.

The Sonic order was filed later, on 15 April, and requests similar information. µ