Google took nearly three years to reveal to the open advice group WikiLeaks that it’d handed over other digital data and e-mails belonging to the US government to three of its own staffers, under a secret search warrant issued by a national judge.

WikiLeaks has written to Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, to protest that the warrants were just revealed by the hunt giant having been served the three in March 2012.

Ratner additionally inquires whether the California-based firm did anything and whether or not it’s received any additional data demands it’s yet to divulge. Google revealed to WikiLeaks on Christmas Eve – a quiet news interval – that it’d reacted to a Justice Department order to hand above a catchall dragnet of digital data including IP addresses and all e-mails connecting to the three staffers. The issues of the warrants were the representative for the organisation, Kristinn Hrafnsson, the British citizen Sarah Harrison; the investigations editor of WikiLeaks; and Joseph Farrell, one of its senior editors.

When it notified the WikiLeaks workers last month, Google said it’d not been able to say anything regarding the warrants earlier as a gag order was visited. Google said the non-disclosure orders had later been revoked, though it didn’t specify when. “Understanding that the FBI read the words Harrison wrote to console my mom above a death in the family makes me feel ill,” she said.

Harrison accused Google of helping the US government hide “the invasion of privacy into a British journalist’s private email address.

The court orders cast an info web so broad as to ensnare almost all digital communications or sent to the three. Google was told to deliver the contents of each of their e-mails, including those received and sent, all draft correspondence and deleted e-mails. The destination and source addresses of every e-mail, its date and time, and size and span were additionally contained in the dragnet.

All records connecting to the net accounts used by the three were also demanded by the FBI, including IP addresses and telephone numbers, particulars of the time plus length of their on-line actions, and alternative email addresses. The credit card or bank account numbers linked to the accounts needed to be shown.

Alexander Abdo, a staff lawyer and secrecy specialist in the American Civil Liberties Union, said the warrants were “shockingly comprehensive” in their catchall wording.

“This is essentially ‘Hand over anything you have got on this particular man’,” he said. “That is troubling as it is difficult to recognize what WikiLeaks did in its disclosures from what leading papers do every day in talking to government officials and printing still-secret info.”

Google hasn’t disclosed exactly which records it handed over by the deadline of April 2012. But it’s told the three people that it supplied “reactive records pursuant to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act”.

A representative for the firm said: “We follow the law like every other business.

“When we receive a subpoena or court order, we check to find out if it satisfies both the letter and also the nature of the law before honoring. And if it by chance does not we ask or can object that the request is narrowed. We’ve got a reputation for advocating on behalf of our users.”

The information catch is considered to be part of an on-going criminal investigation into WikiLeaks which the US departments of Justice, Defense and State established in 2010 together. The investigation followed WikiLeaks’ publication in engagement of thousands and tens of thousands of US secrets that the military private Chelsea Manning had passed to the organisation, with international news organisations including the Guardian.

The vast stash of war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq, leaked files including embassy cables, and a video of an Apache helicopter attack. The warrants were issued by a national judge in the eastern district of Virginia – the authority. The investigation was supported to be on-going and active as recently as May this past year.

Testimony given during the prosecution of Manning suggested that at least seven “creators, owners or supervisors or WikiLeaks” were put under the FBI limelight in the aftermath of Manning’s disclosures.

The WikiLeaks warrants mention alleged violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act as well as the 1917 Espionage Act – the same statutes. A federal magistrate judge, John Anderson approved the information seizures.

Assange continues in asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, facing extradition to Sweden following rape and sexual assault allegations for which he hasn’t been charged and which he refuses.

The behavior of Google stands in marked contrast to Twitter, which has challenged US government demands that are similar.

In the case of Twitter, the Justice Department demanded accessibility to the social media reports of Birgitta Jonsdottir, former Wikileaks volunteer and an Icelandic MP who was part of the team that released the Apache helicopter footage that was secret.

Twitter told Jonsdottir that the US government had asked for access to her messages, enabling her to mount a legal effort to halt them. In July 2012 an appeals court ruled against two other defendants and Jonsdottir, permitting the Justice Department to keep secret information about its efforts to acquire their advice with no warrant.

All the leading technology firms now reveal exactly how many requests they receive from US authorities for users’ advice but it is very uncommon for their sake to divulge particular objectives of these investigations and generally they’re restricted in what they are able to reveal.