From one of my lawyers:

“The government gets 60 days to respond. We can’t say for sure what will
happen after that because it depends on how they respond. It’s quite
possible the government will file a Motion to Dismiss, which means that
they’ll argue that even if everything you say in the Complaint is true,
there was not constitutional violation. But we don’t know for a fact
that this will be the government’s strategy.”

Okay everyone, thanks for the questions! You can keep up with the case on twitter by following @ACLU , @lockean , @ACLU_Mass , and @Janehamsher .

Stay safe, and keep moving forward.

The State Dept and Army CID attempted to bribe me in Cambridge last June, asking me to “keep my ear to the ground about WikiLeaks and the Boston hacker scene” in exchange for an unspecified “large cash reward.” That’s the point where I asked the gentlemen to leave.

It’s very unclear who is blocking me from seeing him; without contact from the attorney, I am unable to properly investigate this. Very interesting and hard-to-read situation.

I agree that our political leaders are incentivized to make laws based not on the will of the people, but based instead on the will their most powerful constituents: businesses. The problem is systemic as political leaders require the funding and consent of major corporate donors in order to maintain financial stability and vitality at the polls.

What we may need is a separation of business and State.

I am not allowed to visit Bradley, which is beyond upsetting. But I do know that he can receive mail… If you want to mail Bradley (please do!), you can write here:

Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027

Interesting point. Thanks for this.

I don’t have much firsthand information about Bradley at Leavenworth; ever since the move I’ve had a hard time getting info apart from what is posted on the attorney’s official blog, armycourtmartialdefense.info

I’m still waiting for a response about being added back to his visitors list, but this whole thing is an information black-hole right now…

I have not received a subpoena, but I know other Manning supporters have.

If the government believed I had something criminal on my laptop, I woud hope they would obtain a warrant or issue a subpoena. The way the State went about this seizure may say a lot about its role as a fishing expedition.

Most of the intimidation directed at me originates from the US Government in the form of constant surveillance, bribe offers, focused disinformation, character assassination, and the targeting of my friends for intelligence at home and abroad. At least a few of these tactics seem to align with those proposed against me in the HBGary report.

The airport process changes a bit each time I re-enter the country. The first time I had any problems was re-entering the nation from Canada last September, where I underwent extra scrutiny and questioning, a thorough bag search, etc. I didn’t think much of it — normalcy bias, perhaps.

The next incident was a full-on computer seizure at the Chicago O’Hare airport. In this situation, the DHS waited until I had cleared customs to approach me and seize my electronics. The DHS’s questions primarily revolved around my political beliefs, my work in Manning Support Network, and my impressions of WikiLeaks.

Since that incident in O’Hare, I have re-entered the nation through Boston five times. In each of these cases I am usually escorted from the Customs counter by an armed CBP officer and taken to a special bag-search/questioning area, where the agents may ask about everything from my political beliefs to who I was staying with overseas. In each of these cases, I refuse to cooperate with questioning when it becomes more than cursory.

Great question. My computer had an encrypted partition but was not full-disk encrypted. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of disk security will recognize this as a mistake: without full-disk encryption, the swap file may be accessed to glean encryption keys or data may be altered on the disk by an adversary. The non-ideal on my laptop underscores just how surprising this seizure was, but I can say that my security policies have — ahem, improved — since that incident in Chicago O’Hare.

For security purposes, I assume that all data on any seized encrypted device — full-disk or otherwise — will be compromised if taken into physical long-term possession by a skilled adversary. The goal of activist security, then, becomes not only one of encrypting your data but also one of misdirecting and misleading those who would seek to undo your work.

I know that Bradley is doing much better in Kansas; the facility is treating him humanely and in a dignified fashion. Finally. What alarms me is that it took four months of full-time campaigning to get Bradley’s treatment changed — for many Americans in solitary, such a concerted and prolonged public effort is not possible. I shudder to think how many other prisoners are being mistreated at the hands of the State.

As I said in the Associated Press article posted this morning, the surveillance state poses a threat to the political interests of every American — and thus this is a trans-partisan case. Whether you are a 2nd-Amendment activist from the South or an animal rights activist in New York City, the precedent of unwarranted property seizure can and will be used to target you should you become politically unsavory to the standing administration.

I’m unable to travel internationally without the threat of seizure to my electronics — a huge problem for a freelance computer scientist. In my mind this State behavior poses a threat to democracy in the long-term: for journalists, it may mean the seizure of a camera or a computer full of source information; for activists, it may mean the seizure of digital support lists and donor information.

This intimidation has become a routine part of travel for hundreds of thousands of Americans, according to a USA Today article published in 2009 [http://usat.ly/ju4LTe]. This lawsuit seeks to stop this disturbing trend, amongst other goals.

The case is just getting started, and there are many stages to the process — many of which I’m not entirely well-versed in. I’ll get an accurate timeline from the ACLU today and post a proper reply!

I’m not sure about Kevin’s filings — Jane, can you shed any light on this?

In relation to HBGary Federal, I will say that my face appearing in that powerpoint presentation was profoundly chilling — especially on the tails of the computer seizure last Fall. It’s interesting to note that the HBGary document was drafted last November, before any of our Bradley Manning support went mainstream — which to me implies that HBGary had some other reason for targeting Glenn and myself aside from our support for Manning.

Regardless of the rationale, much of the nastiness of the past year — the computer seizure and the HBGary draft — took place last November, and it makes me wonder what was happening behind the scenes between USGOV and its security contractors during those winter months.

In my mind, private citizens have a higher expectation of privacy than institutions with heavy influence on the political process.