The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its former director Mike Pompeo were slapped with a lawsuit Monday from a group of journalists and lawyers over allegations that the government agency spied on them and hundreds of others while meeting with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.
The lawsuit alleges that the CIA under Pompeo violated the Fourth Amendment rights of journalists Charles Glass and John Goetz and attorneys Margaret Kunstler and Deborah Hrbek, who have represented Assange.
“The United States Constitution shields American citizens from U.S. government overreach even when the activities take place in a foreign embassy in a foreign country,” Richard Roth, the leading lawyer representing the group, told Daily Wire in a statement.
The filings allege authorities made each visitor surrender any electronic device such as smartphones or laptops during their interactions with Assange, who is currently fighting extradition to the U.S., where he faces 175 years in prison for publishing classified information. The Wikileaks founder had lived in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London under political asylum since 2012 until authorities arrested him seven years later.
However, Roth said the journalists and lawyers who met with Assange had their conversations recorded and data from their electronic devices copied by Undercover Global SL, a private security contractor, and passed along to the CIA under the direction of Pompeo.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit have also filed the case again Undercover Global and its Chief Executive David Morales Guillen.
“It is somewhat startling that in light of the Fourth Amendment protection we have in the Constitution, the federal government would actually go ahead and take this confidential information,” Roth told reporters during a press conference.
Monday’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and the plaintiff’s are only asking for
injunctive relief and not money damages.
U.S. law prohibits the CIA from collecting intelligence on citizens. However, Reuters reports that lawmakers have alleged that the alphabet agency keeps clandestine of Americans’ communications data.
“Think of what we store in our phones and our computers — birthdays, bank information, dates of birth — all of this was recorded, and then given over to the Central Intelligence Agency,” Robert Boyle, a New York Civil Rights and constitutional law attorney, told reporters during the press conference. “So the violations of the privacy rights here were particularly egregious.”
Boyle argues that the alleged violations have also “tainted, if not destroyed,” a fair trial for Assange.
Margaret Kunstler, a criminal and civil rights attorney and a plaintiff in the case, called the act by the government agency “terrible,” adding she can’t think of anything worse than the opposition listening in on their plans and conversations.
“Gross misconduct is exactly what has happened here,” Kunstler said. “And I don’t understand how the CIA — I guess through the insanity of Pompeo — could think that they could do this is so outrageous that it’s beyond my comprehension.”
Kunstler visited Assange at the Embassy between January 2017 and March 2018.
Deborah Harbeck, an attorney who has visited Mr. Assange, echoed her fellow plaintiff, saying the violation of her constitutional rights is an outrage.
“I have the right to assume that the U.S. government is not listening to my private and privileged conversations with my clients,” Harbeck told reporters, adding that information about other clients in cases she may have on her phone or laptop is secure from illegal government intrusion.
Harbeck reportedly visited Assange during the relevant period.
John Goetz, the editor of investigations at German public broadcaster NDR, told reporters he worked with Assange between 2011 and 2017. He said he met with the political asylee for editorial discussion about stories at the Embassy.
“I find that quite disturbing that what was essentially a private editorial situation was conceivably or possibly are likely being listened to,” Goetz said. “I thought that we were protected, especially as American citizens, by the Fourth Amendment.”
Nathan Fuller, director of Assange’s defense committee, argued that the journalists tried to publish crucial content for the public interest and its right to know what lengths the government would reach to silence reporters who reveal information “embarrassing to the regime.”
“This should worry anybody who values investigative journalists and journalism and should be aware of the unprecedented threat that this prosecution poses to it,” Fuller told reporters.
According to Reuters, Pompeo and Undercover Global S.L. could not immediately be reached for comment.
The filings allege that Pompeo has said in the past he would target whistleblowers who exposed U.S. government secrets and argued that “the one thing [current] whistleblowers don’t need is a publisher” due to the availability of the Internet. The former CIA director allegedly called WikiLeaks “a non-state hostile intelligence service” while referring to Assange as a “narcissist,” “fraud,” and a “coward.”
Assange founded Wikileaks in 2006 and has since published over 10 million documents exposing war crimes, human rights violations, corruption, and other government misconduct worldwide. He faces 18 counts under the Espionage Act, including a spying charge related to WikiLeaks’ release of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables.