The letter accompanied a subpoena delivered this week to an individual in Boston — one of a number of individuals whom investigators have pressed or tried to press for information on WikiLeaks and who have been served with subpoenas this week. A copy of the subpoena was provided to The Washington Post with the name redacted.
Though the letter does not name WikiLeaks or Assange, sources said the subpoena was issued in relation to the probe.
The letter makes clear that an array of charges are being considered, in part, experts said, to avoid First Amendment challenges that would arise with a prosecution of WikiLeaks under the Espionage Act. That 1917 law makes it a crime to “communicate or transmit” sensitive information to an unauthorized party, and using it would probably set up a battle over an individual’s right to speak freely.
“If the Justice Department concludes that a crime has been committed, it will twist itself like a pretzel to avoid using the Espionage Act, not only because it is old and vague but because it raises a number of First Amendment problems for prosecutors,” said Abbe D. Lowell, a Washington defense attorney who has handled leak cases.
U.S. officials would not comment on any subpoenas but indicated that prosecutors are likely to carefully weigh any decision to file charges under the Espionage Act, in part because of First Amendment concerns.
“The Justice Department has decided to attack on many fronts at once,” said Assange, in a phone interview from London. One reason, he alleged, “is because it is difficult to extradite someone for espionage, espionage being a classic political offense, and most extradition treaties have exemptions” for political acts.
He blasted the investigation, saying, “It is quite wrong to go after publishers and journalists for performing their work.”
In the WikiLeaks investigation, prosecutors have sought personal Twitter account information from Assange, Manning and several others linked to WikiLeaks.
The recipients are not the targets of the probe, sources said.
The April 21 letter, first reported by Salon.com, indicated that the individual served with the subpoena was to appear next month before a grand jury to answer questions concerning “possible violations of criminal law.” Possible violations include conspiracy to “knowingly [access] a computer without authorization” and to “knowingly [steal] any record or thing of value” belonging to the government.
“What they are trying to do is find proof that the WikiLeaks people were in a conspiracy with the leaker to get the information,” Lowell said. “If WikiLeaks is involved in the theft or improper access to the information, that’s not protected under the First Amendment.”
Staff writer Dana Hedgpeth and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.
If you’re an active investor who occasionally buys or sells a stock based on tips, you might be understandably nervous about the massive insider trading crackdown surrounding Galleon Group. The now-defunct hedge fund is linked to 22 guilty pleas and more than two dozen arrests involving an array of alleged conspirators, including lawyers, consultants and investment managers.
And Galleon is only the latest in a bevy of recent insider-trading prosecutions, including one case filed against a group of technology salespeople who traded Apple shares based, allegedly, on confidential information and another case that nabbed a doctor for blabbing about clinical trials for a new drug.Yet if people couldnt trade on tips, Jim Cramer, the host of CNBCs Mad Money program, would be out of work. In reality, it is perfectly legal (although potentially unwise) to trade on some tips that you hear or overhear. Illegal insider trading is all about facts and circumstances. Which situations constitute illegal insider trading and which dont?
TAKE OUR QUIZ: ARE YOU GUILTY OF INSIDER TRADING?
Situation #1: Coffee Talk
You are standing in line at Starbucks, and a well-dressed couple in front of you is talking about retiring to Majorca after they sell their company. You recognize them as the founders of a publicly traded company and figure out that the deal hasnt yet been announced. You snap up as many shares as you can afford and make a killing when the takeover is announced. Is this insider trading?
No. If this couple bought or sold shares — or called you and tipped you off in private — it would be a violation. But illegal insider trading requires that you not only trade on the basis of important nonpublic information but that you also have some sort of duty to keep the information confidential. Former football coach Barry Switzer was sued for insider trading following a similar scenario in 1981, but he won the case because he had no duty to ignore a conversation he overheard in a public place.
Situation #2: Office Eavesdrop
Youre a janitor at a major company. You hear members of the companys board convening outside the room youre cleaning and decide to hide in the closet. The board okays a deal to sell the company for a fat premium to the current share price. You load up on the shares. Illegal insider trading?
Definitely. This is not a public place, and youd be in a position to understand that confidential information was being disclosed, which changes the calculus, says Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago-based securities lawyer.
Situation #3: Stranger Danger
You hop in a cab at JFK and are startled by the drivers Armani suit and solid-gold pinkie ring. You learn that the driver is merely taking this shift as a favor for a friend. The driver is now happily retired, living on his investment portfolio. When you whine about your own, he says: Look, Ill give you a break. Buy as much stock in Google as you can. You do. Insider trading?
No . It may be unwise — because the cab driver could as clueless as you — but you have no reason to believe hes telling you anything thats not public information.
Situation #4: Proud Papa
Once again a cab driver is offering stock tips, but this time he mentions that his son is an attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher Flom, a major law firm in the merger game. Insider trading?
This scenario could qualify as insider trading. Its all about whether you have reason to believe that youre receiving important, nonpublic information from a person who has a duty to keep that information private. The cab drivers trading would definitely be verboten. Yours is in a hard-to-defend gray area, says Stoltmann.
Situation #5: Mass Exodus
You read a few years back that executives at Countrywide Financial, the big mortgage lender, were unloading their stock. You decided that they must know something you didnt, so you followed suit and sold your shares, too. Now you worry that the Feds are going to come after you. Insider trading?
For you? No. For them? Maybe. Executives can sell their own companys stock without running afoul of the rules as long as theyre not trading based on information they havent shared with the public. The SEC sued Countrywides CEO, Angelo Mozilo, and several other insiders in 2009 (after the company had been acquired by Bank of America), alleging that they had improperly traded on undisclosed information about the evil lurking inside the companys loan portfolio. Mozilo, who netted some $140 million selling Countrywide stock before the company collapsed, eventually settled the suit without admitting or denying guilt by paying $67.5 million in fines and disgorging profits.
As for you: Mozilos trades were disclosed in SEC filings and in numerous news stories. Trading based on publicly available information is perfectly legal.
Situation #6: Disgruntled Employee
A woman in your Bunco group says shes about to quit her job because she cant stand the strain of working in a medical office where all the patients are dying. Because of previous casual conversations, you know that patients in this office are involved in early trials of a new drug. You know what the drug is and who makes it. You sell short shares of the drugs developer, betting that the stock will fall in value. Did you violate insider-trading rules?
This probably would not qualify as insider trading. Your playing partner is sharing information thats so general it cant be used to gauge whether the clinical trial will result in failure. Thus, the tip fails the materiality test. Its not significant enough to the companys stock price. And because the woman is just sharing information about the status of the offices patients and not the trial (including whether the ailing patients are taking the new drug or a placebo), no one appears to have a duty to keep quiet.
Situation #7: Disgruntled Employees Boss
Your friends boss calls and begs you to talk your friend out of quitting. The boss tells you confidentially that the drug trial your friend is upset about will soon be terminated because the drug is probably responsible for the deaths of those in the trial. You sell the developers stock short. Are you violating insider-trading rules now?
Yes. Youve been fed important information from an insider, who has said that the information was confidential. The SEC recently filed an insider-trading case against two individuals — a hedge fund manager named Joseph Chip Skowron and a medical researcher, named Yves Benhamou, who was overseeing a drug trial. The SEC alleges that Skowron paid Benhamou with envelopes stuffed with cash for confidential information about the results, which he then used to avoid tens of millions in stock losses on his holdings in Human Genome Sciences. Benhamou pled guilty; the case against Skowron is pending. The hedge fund Skowron worked for settled without admitting or denying guilt.
Situation #8: Shared Broker
Your broker calls and says you need to get out of ImClone Systems now because the CEO, who is also his client, is selling all his shares. Insider trading?
Maybe. The SEC filed suit against homemaking personality Martha Stewart in 2003 with these exact facts. Stewart did end up going to prison — but not for insider trading. She was convicted of obstructing justice and lying to prosecutors. Stewart settled the SECs insider-trading case, paying a fine and agreeing to never violate securities laws in the future. The settlement eliminated the need for a trial as well as a definitive answer about whether she had a duty to ignore the tip. But the case was complicated by the fact that Stewart had once been a stockbroker. The SEC contended that she should have known better.
Situation #9: Gordon Gekko
Youre a hedge fund manager, buying and selling stocks constantly. You pay a series of experts to feed you hush-hush information about pending mergers, and you earn millions in profits by buying shares of takeover targets before deals are announced. Insider trading?
Absolutely. If you bribed or bought insider information and traded on it, youre going to prison.
Situation #10: Information Seeker
Youre a hedge fund manager, and you pay dozens of analysts and consultants to provide seasoned advice about stocks to buy and sell. Some of those consultants may have access to secret information, but you trade based on a wide array of factors, including examination of public documents and detailed analysis about industries and companies operating within them. Insider trading?
This situation probably would not be considered insider trading. The key to the case against Galleon CEO Raj Rajaratnam hinges, says Stoltmann, on whether his lawyers were able to establish that his trading was based on assembling a mosaic of information or whether he paid consulants to feed him insider tips. The former, says Stoltmann, is perfectly legal. The latter is not.
A British man who failed to disclose he had been imprisoned for “industrial espionage” against the Church of Scientology in Denmark has been refused permission to settle in New Zealand.
Robin Scott, 62, and his wife Adrienne, 61, left their Canterbury organic farm in March after the Immigration and Protection Tribunal turned down an appeal against a direction for them to leave New Zealand, The Dominion Post newspaper reported.
In his visitor and work visa application in 2005 Mr Scott failed to disclose he had spent a month in a Danish prison before being deported in 1984.
He told authorities of the “industrial espionage” charge only four years later.
In the incident, Mr Scott waited outside a scientology property in Copenhagen while two others disguised as senior church officials entered and left with teaching materials.
A former church member, Mr Scott intended to use the materials in a business he had set up for those wanting to study scientology from outside the organisation.
The couple both admitted in their 2005 application they had served prison sentences in the 1990s for cannabis charges while living in Britain.
Mrs Scott had been accepted for registration as a teacher in New Zealand, despite the cannabis charges.
EVERY word uttered in a cab could soon be recorded. Source: The Courier-Mail
EVERY word uttered in a cab could soon be recorded and stored under proposed State Government changes to the operation of taxi security cameras.
Simply opening the door or starting the meter would activate the recording of trips in an industry that claims to transport 90 million passengers in Queensland each year.
The move has alarmed civil libertarians, the state Opposition and even concerned some members of the taxi industry.
Queensland’s Privacy Commissioner Linda Matthews, who was not consulted about the proposal detailed in a Transport and Main Roads’ discussion paper, said there would be no such thing as “an anonymous taxi ride” once audio recordings were introduced.
“The public would want to be reassured the record is used for genuine law enforcement purpose and the protections that are in place should be sufficient. I guess time will tell,” she said.
When security cameras were first introduced to Queensland cabs in 2006, the recording of audio was not permitted under law for privacy reasons.
But the discussion paper states that “enabling of audio is not considered to increase any risk of breaches of privacy”.
Under the proposal, stickers in taxis would inform passengers that “security cameras and microphones are fitted, you will be photographed, conversations will be recorded”.
Once downloaded by a taxi company, the audio would be able to be held for a maximum 35 days before it had to be deleted or destroyed.
Michael Cope from the Queensland Council of Civil Liberties said the new proposal was “extraordinary and unnecessary”.
“I haven’t seen anything that justifies adding audio to the footage recorded in cabs,” Mr Cope said.
“It wasn’t considered necessary when security cameras were first introduced. You’d really need some strong evidence that it would make a difference to cabbies’ safety to justify it.”
QCCL vice-president Terry O’Gorman said audio was “a totally unjustified intrusion into people’s taxi conversations”.
“We would say that if it goes ahead, downloads should only be done on the order of a magistrate where there’s reasonable cause to think it would assist in investigating a crime,” Mr O’Gorman said.
Lee Sims, from the Cab Drivers’ Association of Queensland, who recently launched a “word of mouth campaign” against the Bligh Government, said there were already too many regulations on downloading material from security cameras.
“As far as I’m concerned we’ve gone too far with privacy and we should not have to jump through so many hoops to get access to material from the security cameras,” Mr Sims said. “A lot more fare evaders would be caught if it was easier to access downloads.”
Queensland Taxi Advisers Incorporated also raised concerns about safeguards, but spokesman John Rahilly said they supported the introduction of audio recordings.
“Greater transparency and certainty will be provided in investigations where there are conflicting statements from drivers and passengers,” Mr Rahilly said. “(But) the security and integrity of the process, especially in the area of downloading, is of paramount importance in protecting the privacy issues of all parties.”
Opposition transport spokesman Scott Emerson questioned why the discussion paper was not advertised by the State Government, with only taxi industry members aware of the document.
Submissions closed last Saturday.
Mr Emerson said it was vital the public had an opportunity to comment on an issue that had the potential to impact everyone who got into a cab.
“This would be a very significant change and it is important that the public is well and truly aware that this is being considered,” Mr Emerson said.
Top five topics raised in cabs (provided by Lee Sims, Cab Drivers Association of Queensland)
1. Personal issues, particularly relationships
2. Weather
3. Sport
4. Politics and current affairs
5. Happenings and events around the city
Mr Sims said despite the commonly held belief cabbies were barometers of social opinion, that was not really the case.
“Conversations in cabs vary greatly. Drivers are told not to initiate conversations but some do of course,” Mr Sims said.
“We do hear some very personal information, kind of like hairdressers I guess. People seem to see cabs as confessional boxes.”
A 27-year-old man was arrested for allegedly trying to pick up a 15-year-old middle school student, Salinas police said today.
The man, Andrew Gaytan, was allegedly following girls near La Paz Middle School as he cruised around in a charcoal colored Mazda, officials said.
A passerby called to report the incident to police at 9:22 a.m. Wednesday. The caller told officers that they were trying to follow Gaytan and last saw him on Moreno Street talking to the 15-year-old.
Officers said that when they arrived, they found Gaytan trying to talk the girl into his car.
Their investigation revealed that Gaytan had contacted the girl three different times, police said. Officers, believing Gaytan was drunk, gave him a field sobriety test, which officials said he failed.
Gaytan was three times over the legal limit, police said.
Police booked Gaytan into Monterey County Jail on suspicion of driving under the influence and three counts of annoying a child.
