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As the authorities continued their investigation into the source of the leaks, a Seattle-based software developer who has volunteered for WikiLeaks said he was detained at Newark Liberty International Airport on Thursday and questioned for three hours. The developer, Jacob Appelbaum, 27, said in an interview that as he was returning from an overseas trip, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and from the Army's criminal investigation division asked him about Mr. Assange.
Mr. Appelbaum, an American citizen, said the agents also seized his laptop computer and three cellphones. The laptop was later returned, but the phones were not, he said. Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security, would not comment.
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Mr. Appelbaum said the agents at Newark Airport refused him access to a lawyer and threatened to detain him for similar questioning whenever he re-entered the country after traveling abroad, which he said he did twice a month for a day job as an online software developer.
'They questioned my ability to re-enter the U.S. even though I'm a U.S. citizen,' he said in a telephone interview from Las Vegas. 'It's very troubling to think that every time I cross the border, I'd get this treatment.'
Mr. Appelbaum, who develops software for the Tor Project, a software system that allows people to talk anonymously to each other online, filled in for Mr. Assange at a conference last month, apparently because Mr. Assange did not want to enter the United States. 'It seems the only reason they're bothering me is that Julian is beyond their reach,' Mr. Appelbaum said.
Mr. Appelbaum said he had been a volunteer for WikiLeaks for several months, but was not involved in reviewing information submitted to it. Investigators, however, appear to be examining whether Mr. Assange was assisted by others in obtaining the documents. |
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Eric Schmitt, David Sanger |
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New York Times |
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Border Searches, Grand Jury, Search and Seizure |
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Jacob Appelbaum, a Seattle-based programmer for the online privacy protection project called Tor, arrived at the Newark, N.J., airport on a flight from Holland on Thursday morning when he was pulled aside by customs and border protection agents, who told him that he was randomly selected for a security search, according to the sources familiar with the matter, who asked to remain anonymous.
Appelbaum, a U.S. citizen, was taken into a room and frisked, and his bag was searched. Receipts from his bag were photocopied, and his laptop was inspected, the sources said. Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and from the U.S. Army then told him that he was not under arrest but was being detained, the sources said. The officials asked questions about Wikileaks, asked for his opinions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and asked where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange could be found, but Appelbaum declined to comment without a lawyer present, according to the sources. Appelbaum was not permitted to make a phone call, the sources said.
After about three hours, Appelbaum was given his laptop back, but the agents kept his three mobile phones, sources said.
Asked for comment, Appelbaum declined to talk to CNET. However, he made reference to Defcon attendees about his phone getting seized. Following a question-and-answer session after his talk on the Tor Project, Appelbaum was asked by an attendee for his phone number. He replied, 'that phone was seized. |
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Elinor Mills |
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CNET |
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He was also approached by two FBI agents at the Defcon conference after his presentation on Saturday afternoon about the Tor Project.
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'Shortly thereafter, two casually dressed men identified themselves as FBI agents and asked to talk to him.
'We'd like to chat for a few minutes,' one of the men said, adding, 'we thought you might not want to.' Appelbaum asked them if they were aware of 'what happened to me,' and one of them replied, 'Yes, that's why we're here.'
'I don't have anything to say,' Appelbaum told them. One of the agents said they were interested in hearing about 'rights being trampled' and said, 'sometimes it's nice to have a conversation to flesh things out.'
Marcia Hofmann, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was in the room and asked if the agents were at the event in an official capacity or for personal reasons. 'A little of both,' one of them said.
Appelbaum asked when his equipment would be returned, and one of the agents said, 'We aren't involved in that; we have no idea,' and walked away when Appelbaum declined to talk further.
The agents declined to identify themselves to CNET. They said they were attending the conference and declined to talk further.' |
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Elinor Mills |
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CNET |
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Grand Jury |
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The Power of Chinese Security |
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Defcon |
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