The government of Iceland warned one of its MPs not to travel to the United States because the country was about to engage on some wholesale arrests of people involved with WikiLeaks.

Indeed, Icelandic MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir confirmed that her attorneys have seen papers showing that a grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks’ whistleblowing is currently underway in the United States. Birgitta Jónsdóttir was a co-producer of a video released by WikiLeaks to show US soldiers shooting civilians in Baghdad from a helicopter. The MP admitted that already the American Department of Justice tried to hack by legal means into her social media accounts. Unfortunately, the legal team of Twitter unsealed the US secret document and provided a chance to defend personal data in court from being used in a dragnet, for the first serious attacks on the whistleblower’s supporters and volunteers.

Meanwhile, the speaker of the Icelandic Parliament even raised this issue at the International Parliamentarian Union in 2011, but was backed. It said the outfit was concerned that the legal framework over the use of electronic media wasn’t enough to provide sufficient guarantees to ensure respect for freedom of expression, access to data and the right to privacy.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir has parliamentary immunity under its home country’s law when she carries out political activity, but the United States clearly ignored that fact. She believes that it’s proof that WikiLeaks’ founder is clearly not overreacting to his fear of possible extradition to the United States. Jónsdóttir added that the fact her Twitter data sought was clearly content to establishing key facts about an ongoing investigation.

However, during a meeting at the Icelandic State Department, Jónsdóttir received a message from the newly appointed US Ambassador, who was instructed by his country to announce that if Jónsdóttir ever popped over to the US, the border agents wouldn’t get out their rubber hoses, and promised she wouldn’t have to face an involuntary interrogation.

Nevertheless, the Icelandic State Department strongly advised Birgitta against visiting the United States. In a while, her attorneys saw at least a couple of sealed grand jury papers relating to her when requesting access to the papers pertaining to her case. Of course, the United States wants to get even with the service, and its founder has every reason to worry about being extradited to the country, no matter from Britain or Sweden.

I love the way the US govt spends so much time and effort on the messenger rather than fixing the corrupt behaviour at the source of the leaks!