Wikileaks handed two discs of secret Swiss banking data

Many are awaiting a Wikileaks release regarding a major U.S. bank, widely believed to be Bank of America. In the meantime, however, former Swiss banking employee Rudolf Elmer has handed over two discs worth of data to Wikileaks, containing information about bank accounts of more than 2,000 "prominent individuals."

Elmer has his own whistleblower website, which is where the information came from, and he handed the discs over to Wikileaks chief Julian Assange, publicly, at a press conference on Monday morning. It is up to Wikileaks to vet, and if they deem the information reliable, release it.  Assange said,

"Once we have looked at the data ... there will be full revelation."

The discs could potentially hold information related to possible tax evasion. The people involved could be using the Swiss banking system’s offshore Cayman Islands accounts to avoid paying taxes in their native countries. Yesterday, Elmer told The Observer:

"Once you become part of senior management and gain international experience, as I did, then you are part of the inner circle, and things become much clearer. You are part of the plot. You know what the real products and service are, and why they are so expensive. It should be no surprise that the main product is secrecy ... Crimes are committed and lies spread in order to protect this secrecy."

However, both Wikileaks and Elmer are interested in the flaws in the system, not the individuals involved. Thus, we probably won't be seeing actual names exposed.

While Assange is fighting extradition to Sweden over sexual misconduct chargers, Elmer is facing trial in Switzerland for an earlier data leak. In this case, however, Elmer claimed he did not break any Swiss banking secrecy rules. He indicated that all of the banking information was related to the Cayman Islands, and lay outside Swiss jurisdiction.

You can watch the actual handover below.

Wikileaks associate to be represented by EFF in Twitter subpoena fight

When Twitter revealed to some Wikileaks-related users that the Department of Justice had issued a subpoena asking for their Twitter records, it suggested they might seek legal counsel with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. That is exactly what at least one of them has done.

Birgitta Jonsdottir, one of those targeted by the subpoena, is being represented by the EFF. Jonsdottir is a member of the Icelandic parliament who assisted Wikileaks' in its release of a classified U.S. military video in April of 2010.

The original court order was faxed to Twitter on December 14. The order covers accounts linked to Wikileaks including its own account, those of Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army Pfc accused of leaking the classified documents to the whistleblower site; Jonsdottir; Wikileaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum; Rop Gonggrijp; and, of course, Wikileaks chief Julian Assange.

Between December 14 and early January, Twitter asked the judge to unseal the order, and on January 5, the same judge who signed the first order ordered the original court order unsealed. Two days later, last Friday, Twitter sent email notifications to the holders of the accounts listed on the subpoena, telling them the company would respond to the order in 10 days, unless “we receive notice from you that a motion to quash the legal process has been filed or that this matter has been otherwise resolved.”

These sorts of orders are not uncommon, actually. It's also widely assumed that other companies, such as Facebook and Google, have received the same sort of court order for the same type of information, about the same users.

DoJ subpoenas Twitter for records of WikiLeaks, Assange, associates

The Department of Justice has served Twitter with a subpoena for the Twitter account records of Wikileaks along with several users associated with the whistleblower site. Originally, the DoJ ordered Twitter to keep the subpoena quiet, but Twitter fought back legally and had the order unsealed.

The subpoena asks for records for Wikileaks chief Julian Assange, Pfc. Bradley Manning (widely is allegedly the person who leaked the Iraq, Afghanistan, and diplomatic cable info to the site), along with several WikiLeaks associates and volunteers, including Birgitta Jonsdottir, Rop Gongrijp, and Jacob Appelbaum, who filled in for Assange at a conference in mid-July. The records requested are from Nov. 2009 to present. The subpoena (.PDF) asks for the following, in addition to other information:

• e-mail addresses
• IP addresses
• residential and business addresses
• session times and connection records
• telephone numbers
• credit card information
• correspondence, including private messages

Rop Gongrijp posted the following email he received from Twitter:

Kessel, Jan-07 11:20 am (PST):
Dear Twitter User:

We are writing to inform you that Twitter has received legal process requesting information regarding your Twitter account, @rop_g. A copy of the legal process is attached. The legal process requires Twitter to produce documents related to your account.

Please be advised that Twitter will respond to this request in 10 days from the date of this notice unless we receive notice from you that a motion to quash the legal process has been filed or that this matter has been otherwise resolved.

To respond to this notice, please e-mail us at .

This notice is not legal advice. You may wish to consult legal counsel about this matter. If you need assistance seeking counsel, you may consider contacting the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the ACLU .

Sincerely,

Twitter Legal

Birgitta Jonsdottir, for one, is attempting to fight the court order. She Tweeted:

Talked with the Icelandic minister of Justice - he is now looking into the case of demands of DoJ wanting my twitter details.

As noted, Twitter had been ordered to keep the order silent, but the order was later unsealed by Judge Theresa Buchanan in Alexandria, VA. As such, it's worth asking if other companies with huge treasure troves of information about all of us (Yahoo!, Facebook, Google) have similarly been subpoenaed, but did so quietly, unlike Twitter. It's hard to imagine Twitter being the only such Internet giant subpoenaed.

Salon.com, which exclusively obtained the subpoena linked above, notes the following:

It's worth recalling -- and I hope journalists writing about this story remind themselves -- that all of this extraordinary probing and "criminal" investigating is stemming from WikiLeaks' doing nothing more than publishing classified information showing what the U.S. Government is doing: something investigative journalists, by definition, do all the time.

That may be true, but what is probably most frightening to the U.S. government, and other governments worldwide, is the ease with which such information can be leaked. There's no doubt that Wikileaks is a first example, and that the moves against Wikileaks serve as a warning to any future leakers.