Military judge frees Navy SEAL charged with war crimes after prosecutors were caught sending trackin

[Elderberry]

Business Insider by Julie Watson, Brian Melley

Military judge frees Navy SEAL charged with war crimes after prosecutors were caught sending tracking emails

US Navy Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL facing a murder trial in the death of an Islamic State prisoner, was freed from custody after a military judge cited interference by prosecutors.

Gallagher pleaded not guilty to murder in the death of an injured teenage militant in Iraq in 2017, and attempted murder for allegedly shooting at civilians from a sniper's perch.

The judge has not ruled yet on whether to throw out the case or remove prosecutors over their tracking emails, which were sent to defense lawyers and a journalist in an effort to find the source of news leaks.

The judge said freeing Gallagher would be a remedy for interference by prosecutors.

A decorated Navy SEAL facing a murder trial in the death of an Islamic State prisoner was freed Thursday from custody after a military judge cited interference by prosecutors.

The unexpected move drew gasps from those at a hearing in a San Diego courtroom in which lawyers for Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher sought to get the case dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct.

Gallagher's wife, Andrea, who has led a campaign to free her husband, put her head in her hands and burst into tears.

The judge, Capt. Aaron Rugh, has not ruled yet on whether to throw out the case or remove prosecutors over tracking emails sent to defense lawyers and a journalist in an effort to find the source of news leaks in the politically charged case. He said freeing Gallagher at this point would be a remedy for interference by prosecutors.

Attorney Tim Parlatore accused prosecutors of a "rogue, relentless, and unlawful cyber campaign" that may have violated attorney-client privilege and hurt Gallagher's ability to get a fair trial.

Efforts to get the case thrown out come as President Donald Trump considers pardoning several service members accused of war crimes, including Gallagher. Gallagher faces trial June 10.

Trump previously got Gallagher removed from the brig and transferred to better custody conditions at a Navy hospital.

More: https://www.businessinsider.com/eddie-gallagher-navy-seal-freed-tracking-email-2019-5-2019-5

[Cyber Liberty]

What's a "tracking email?"

[Elderberry]

What's a "tracking email?"

@Cyber Liberty

How Email Open Tracking Quietly Took Over the Web

https://www.wired.com/story/how-email-open-tracking-quietly-took-over-the-web/

There are some 269 billion emails sent and received daily. That’s roughly 35 emails for every person on the planet, every day. Over 40 percent of those emails are tracked, according to a study published last June by OMC, an “email intelligence” company that also builds anti-tracking tools.

The tech is pretty simple. Tracking clients embed a line of code in the body of an email—usually in a 1x1 pixel image, so tiny it's invisible, but also in elements like hyperlinks and custom fonts. When a recipient opens the email, the tracking client recognizes that pixel has been downloaded, as well as where and on what device. Newsletter services, marketers, and advertisers have used the technique for years, to collect data about their open rates; major tech companies like Facebook and Twitter followed suit in their ongoing quest to profile and predict our behavior online.

But lately, a surprising—and growing—number of tracked emails are being sent not from corporations, but acquaintances. “We have been in touch with users that were tracked by their spouses, business partners, competitors,” says Florian Seroussi, the founder of OMC. “It's the wild, wild west out there.”

According to OMC's data, a full 19 percent of all “conversational” email is now tracked. That’s one in five of the emails you get from your friends. And you probably never noticed.

“Surprisingly, while there is a vast literature on web tracking, email tracking has seen little research,” noted an October 2017 paper published by three Princeton computer scientists. All of this means that billions of emails are sent every day to millions of people who have never consented in any way to be tracked, but are being tracked nonetheless. And Seroussi believes that some, at least, are in serious danger as a result.

[Cyber Liberty]

@Cyber Liberty

How Email Open Tracking Quietly Took Over the Web

https://www.wired.com/story/how-email-open-tracking-quietly-took-over-the-web/

That's fascinating. I need to get a PI license.