Tor Developer Detained At US Border, Pressed On Wikileaks

suraj.sun writes with this news from CNET: "A security researcher involved with the Wikileaks Web site — Jacob Appelbaum, a Seattle-based programmer for the online privacy protection project called Tor — was detained by US agents at the border for three hours and questioned about the controversial whistleblower project as he entered the country on Thursday to attend a hacker conference. He was also approached by two FBI agents at the Defcon conference after his presentation on Saturday afternoon about the Tor Project. Appelbaum, a US citizen, arrived at the Newark, New Jersey, airport from Holland Thursday morning, was taken into a room, frisked and his bag was searched. Officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the US Army then told him he was not under arrest but was being detained. They asked questions about Wikileaks, asked for his opinions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and asked where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is, but he declined to comment without a lawyer present, according to the sources. He was not permitted to make a phone call, they said." Appelbaum told me that he just spoke at length with The New York Times, and quipped that his Defcon talk about Tor was "just fine, until the FBI showed up"; this post will likely be updated with more details. Update: 08/02 03:59 GMT by T : Here's the NYT's coverage.

Comments

Re:Well, good

[Anonymous Coward]

No names were revealed, they were blanked out. Unlike what some "journalist" might have said. Link: http://twitter.com/wikileaks/statuses/20070146579

Re:arrested/detained?

[bl968]

Actually you can be detained and searched up to 100 Miles from the Border.... It's the Constitution free zone... Roughly 2/3rd of the US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders.