WikiLeaks slams Google's secrecy over US requests for information

WikiLeaks yesterday slammed Google for not informing it about the US government's search warrants seeking emails and other personal information from three of its staff, AP reported.

Under the warrants issued in March 2012, the company was required to hand over the phone numbers, IP addresses, credit card details, contents of all emails and other details for Google accounts used by Sarah Harrison, Kristinn Hrafnsson and Joseph Faerrell.

Google communicated the existence of the warrants, which cite espionage, fraud and conspiracy investigation, to WikiLeaks in December.

"We are astonished and disturbed that Google waited over two and a half years to notify its subscribers that a search warrant was issued for their records," WikiLeaks' lawyer Michael Ratner said in a letter to Google chairman Eric Schmidt that was published online yesterday.

The letter added that Twitter had taken legal recourse in order to alert WikiLeaks of a similar warrant in 2011.

According to Google spokesperson Aaron Stein's email yesterday, the policy was to tell people about government requests for their data, except in limited cases, "like when we are gagged by a court order, which sadly happens quite frequently."

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that in a letter to the search company, lawyers representing WikiLeaks said they were "astonished and disturbed" by Google's actions over search warrants it received from federal law enforcement officials and called for a full accounting of the information Google gave the government.

The revelation comes after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden laid bare controversial US government surveillance practices and assurances from technology firms like Google that they would do their utmost to safeguard users' personal information.

According to the letter, issued b the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of WikiLeaks and addressed to Schmidt and general counsel Kent Walker, "While it is too late for our clients to have the notice they should have had, they are still entitled to a list of Google's disclosures to the government and an explanation why Google waited more than two and a half years to provide any notice."

WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange, shot into public spotlight in 2010 after it published a trove of classified government information, including leaked US diplomatic cables.