UC Global and the state secrets privilege
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UC Global is the Spanish private security company that held the contract at the Ecuadorian embassy in London during Julian Assange''s stay there. Two journalists and two attorneys sued the CIA, alleging that at the agency''s request the company illegally copied the contents of their electronic devices when they visited, and transmitted the material to the agency. The claim survived a motion to dismiss; the agency then moved to assert the state secrets privilege.

The visitor Kiriakou has spoken to

John Kiriakou reports discussing the case at length with Brad Birkenfeld, the UBS whistleblower, over the preceding week. "Brad visited Julian on two occasions in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. And Brad, of course, is an American citizen, born and raised in the United States. He turned his cell phone in, just like every visitor to the Ecuadorian embassy did, and now is confident that his information was illegally, improperly downloaded by this Spanish contractor and turned over to the CIA."

What he takes it to prove

"And there''s no recourse. This is clearly, obviously a legal, constitutional violation, and there''s nothing that anybody can do about it." He runs the point straight into his definition of the deep state: "you can call it the deep state, you can call it the state, you can call it the federal bureaucracy, whatever it is, it tramples the constitutional rights of average American citizens, and there is no recourse. This is yet another example."

His expectation of the litigation is pessimistic and procedural. The judge "can accept this or he cannot, he actually could say that you''re not allowed to invoke the state secrets privilege. But there are very, very few judges that would." And if this one did: "I fear that the CIA just drags this out and then hopes that the case gets reassigned, and then tries to find a way to invoke the state secrets privilege again later on down the road. They are masters at procedurally gaming the system." What worries him is the precedent: "if they get away with it now, they''re going to get away with it next time, because a precedent will have been set, or reset. And then where do we turn from there?"

See also

- Julian Assange
- Brad Birkenfeld
- Deep state
- Wikileaks as a System
- Section 702
