FBI Subpoenas Tor Developer to Testify in Criminal Hacking Investigation
Tor developer Isis Agora Lovecruft has traveled from the US to Germany to avoid an FBI subpoena, fearing the agency will attempt to coerce her into helping them crack the anonymity network.
The FBI reportedly seeks the testimony of Lovecruft (which is an alias) in a criminal hacking investigation, but details are scant beyond those provided by Lovecruft in a blog post, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation has taken her case.
“The FBI needs to open up and tell Isis what it is they want before she can decide if she will meet with them,” EFF Senior Staff Attorney Nate Cardozo told Sputnik. “They’ve said she isn’t under investigation, but there are still too many unanswered questions. Isis has a right to know what’s going on instead of playing this strange guessing game as she’s pursued by federal agents.”
The “strange guessing game” began last Thanksgiving, according to Lovecruft’s blog, when an FBI agent left a business card with an additional phone number and a note to call him written on it at the home of Lovecruft’s parents in California. Her family contacted technology and surveillance law attorney Ben Rosenfeld, who called the FBI agent. The agent reportedly expressed skepticism that Rosenfeld was Lovecruft’s legal representative, and said “but… if we happen to run into her on the street, we’re gonna be asking her some questions without you present.”
Soon after, Lovecruft left the US, planning to complete a previously planned migration to Germany.
“I was worried they’d ask me to do something that hurts innocent people — and prevent me from telling people it’s happening,” Lovecruft told CNN.
A subsequent phone call between a different FBI agent and Lovecruft’s lawyer revealed that FBI teams in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Atlanta were looking for her, and that the FBI would prefer a meeting in person to a phone call, so that Lovecruft could share her opinion on documents the agency held. Another phone call indicated that the matter of the documents had been resolved, but the FBI was still hoping to meet with Lovecruft.
Lovecruft’s blog includes speculation about the FBI’s motivation and intentions in seeking a meeting. It also suggests harassment on the part of the FBI, and contains provisions (such as a warrant canary) for communicating as much as possible about the situation in the event that a sealed subpoena or National Security Letter is served.
The FBI has previously subpoenaed Carnegie Mellon University researchers to hack the Tor network, and possibly delivered malware to the network to identify its users.
Source: TheWHIR