This is the best summary I could come up with:
In communications with a federal confidential informant, the pair allegedly planned to “coordinate to get multiple [substations] at the same time.” Clendaniel pleaded guilty to conspiring to damage or destroy electrical facilities in May of this year.
But in a court filing, the ACLU attorneys say Russell has “reason to believe” that the government “intercepted his communications” and subjected him to a warrantless “backdoor search” by querying the Section 702 databases.
And less than a month after that initial query, we disrupted that US person who, it turned out, had researched and identified critical infrastructure sites in the US and acquired the means to conduct an attack.” The defense’s motion to compel the federal government to provide notice of use of Section 702 surveillance of Russell includes both the Politico report and Wray’s speech as exhibits.
The ACLU’s response, filed this Monday, notes that the government “does not dispute that Mr. Russell was subject to warrantless surveillance under Section 702” but instead claims it has no legal obligation to turn over FISA notice in this instance.
Legislators’ attempts to rein in the controversial surveillance authority failed, and multiple amendments requiring the FBI to obtain warrants to search or access Americans’ communications under Section 702 were voted down.
“Especially as recently expanded and reauthorized by Congress, this spying authority could be further abused by a future administration against political opponents, protest movements, and civil society organizations, as well as racial and religious minorities, abortion providers, and LGBTQ people.”
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
As negotiations to end the long legal brawl between Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, and the United States reached a critical point this spring, prosecutors presented his lawyers with a choice so madcap that a person involved thought it sounded like a line from a Monty Python movie.
In April, a lawyer with the Justice Department’s national security division broke the impasse with a sly workaround: How about an American courtroom that wasn’t actually inside mainland America?
By early 2024, leaders in Australia, including Kevin Rudd, the ambassador to the United States, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, began pressuring their American counterparts to reach a deal — not so much out of solidarity with Mr. Assange, or support for his actions, but because he had spent so much time in captivity.
But after a short period of internal discussions, senior officials rejected that approach, drafting a somewhat tougher counteroffer: Mr. Assange would plead to a single felony count, conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information, a more serious offense that encompassed his interactions with Ms. Manning.
Instead, his initial refusal to plead guilty to a felony was rooted in his reluctance to appear in an American courtroom, out of fear of being detained indefinitely or physically attacked in the United States, Ms. Robinson said in the TV interview.
Nick Vamos, the former head of extradition for the Crown Prosecution Service, which is responsible for bringing criminal cases in England and Wales, believes the ruling might have “triggered” an acceleration of the plea deal.
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