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

Opinions are a crime now?

[CarpetShark]

asked for his opinions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

That's more worrying than the detention etc. But then ground-level grunts never did know the law well.

Re:Opinions are a crime now?

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

Well see, here's the thing.

Whenever the state does something that would be illegal for a citizen, they have to have a reason. Many of the things that police and other agencies do are "evil"--arrest and imprisonment is effectively kidnapping, execution is murder, seizing property (including money from fines and damages) is theft, etc--and so ideally they must justify that evil by showing that it is to prevent more evil things from happening in the future; otherwise, we wouldn't put up with it.

I would imagine that a lot of police and other agents (many of whom show up as 'corrupt' on most peoples' moral radars) forget that these actions are evil and consider it just another tool or part of the process of law enforcement. However, being arrested is to the suspect as bad as or worse than kidnapping, especially if they are, in fact, innocent. You are put in a terrifying situation, and if you say the wrong thing, even though you are innocent, you might (you fear) disappear for the rest of your life; the people involved make it clear that they don't care about you, but you're supposed to trust in their ability to dispense justice and ONLY justice; they have this kind of power over you but you have to trust the law to reign in their power and prevent them from doing truly evil things; etc.

So, though IANAL as well, I agree with the GP; as soon as they're kidnapping (even in effect), they should be under the same or more restrictions as when they're performing an arrest. If they try to sneak past that restriction on a technicality--and especially when that's for their own sakes and not for the suspect's--then they are showing that they can't be entrusted with the law per se. Because the law, and agents of the law, should be working to make less evil in this world; if they're doing evil things because they can get away with it rather than after deliberation, that's creating more evil, not less.

Re:Opinions are a crime now?

[kenj0418]

So how exactly did the soldiers end up in the dangerous places which are Afghanistan and Iraq in the first place?

We were in Afghanistan because that's where the people that attacked us were based (at the time anyway). We were in Iraq because... LOOK OVER THERE AT THAT SHINY THING... (*runs off*)

Re:Opinions are a crime now?

[LVSlushdat]

>Officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the US Army then told him he was not under arrest but was being detained.

What a crock! If you are detained from going about your business, you are ARRESTED!! This kind of crap really makes me embarrassed to be an American...

UFFSA

[markdavis]

Welcome to the United Federal Fascist State of America. Please enjoy your stay...

This kinda stuff is totally unacceptable. What law did he break? What was he accused of? Why was he detained? What right do they have to ask such questions? On what planet is a 3 hour detention reasonable?

Re:UFFSA

[Anonymous Coward]

[...] Days would be unreasonable, hours is not.

Idiot.

And soon it will be "weeks would be unreasonable, days are not.", then that would be reasonable, etc.

Idiot.

Re:So what?

[etymxris]

Well it seems clear that there was nothing "random" about his detention. And it's bad enough that customs can seize anything going through the borders without warrant or cause. But it's even worse when border crossings get used as an excuse for warrantless interrogations.

arrested/detained?

[Anonymous Coward]

Curious. Is it just me, or is the whole "you're not arrested, you're detained" just yet another attempt to avoid getting around the limits that the law, constitution etc. set by making up a new word?

Kinda like "enemy combatant" (no Geneva convention for you, Afghanis!), perhaps.

Put another way: if he was not under arrest, was he free to go? If he was not free to go, how was he not under arrest?

Re:"Detained"

[bsDaemon]

Stop quoting laws to us. We carry swords.
-- Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus

Re:of course

[WCguru42]

What did he expect? A Boy Scout merit badge?

As a citizen of the United States? Probably that one phone call to his lawyer and the right from unlawful detainment, to name a few.

Our reputation?

[$beirdo]

Robert Gates said that the release of the WikiLeaks documents may damage our reputation in Afghanistan.

Perhaps it is rather the fact that we kill people and lie about it that damages our reputation in Afghanistan.

We have a right to be informed, because if the public is misled, democracy itself becomes false.

Those who fear the truth are not fit to lead.

Re:So what?

[Redlazer]

Many would argue that the fact that there is a system is a promise that it will be misused. I don't know how true that is, but government transparency would do much to solve it.

No We're Not

[fuzznutz]

1) The united states is at war in Afghanistan

I gotta stop getting my news from the Internet. I totally missed Congress' declaration of war. I was under the impression that we were allied with the government of Afghanistan. BTW, Mr. high and mighty, why did you capitalize Afghanistan and not United States? Are you some kind of treason supporter?

Re:Welcome to Obama's America

[Hatta]

we have lost all security.

Please. That is ridiculous hyperbole. We lost 3000 people in the last 10 years to terrorism. We lose that many to food poisoning every year. We've lost more people to rampant militarism (6700 between Iraq and Afghanistan) in the same time frame. You fear mongers are more dangerous than the fucking terrorists. Your pathetic cowering is pathetic.

Re:Bullshit.

[_Sprocket_]

If our country wasn't randomly bombing the shit out of all manner of other people, and actually keeping an informed and healthy electorate whose votes were actually counted, we wouldn't need a system.

At this point, reasonable people will stop listening to you. Our country is not "randomly bombing the shit out of all manner of other people." There are very distinct reasons behind those actions. You may not agree with the reasons given. You may question whether we are given real reasons. You may disagree with the fundamental idea of such a policy. But it would serve your cause to give voice to those grievances instead of resorting to generic exaggerations. Otherwise, you sound like an uninformed raving lunatic. And you might even cause others who CAN voice rational criticism to be overlooked by the general public.