A former WikiLeaks’ supporter and friend of leaker Bradley Manning who had his laptop seized by the Department of Homeland Security has dropped his federal lawsuit challenging the seizure.

The plaintiff, David Maurice House, says that the government has agreed to delete its copy of the data taken from his machine, and to hand over any notes agents made about the contents of his hard drive.

“They’re giving us exactly what we wanted,” says House.

House is one of several Boston-area friends of Manning who were interviewed by federal agents following Manning’s May 2010 arrest.

The lawsuit stemmed from a November 2010 incident as House deplaned at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport after a vacation in Mexico. He was met by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who searched House’s bags, then took him to a detention room and questioned him.

When House was released, the agents confiscated his laptop computer, a thumb drive and a digital camera. ICE held onto the equipment for 49 days — longer than the 30 days allowed in regulations — finally returning it only when the ACLU of Massachusetts sent them a strongly worded letter on House’s behalf.

Under the “border search exception” of United States criminal law, international travelers can be searched without a warrant as they enter the U.S. Under both the Bush and Obama administrations, law enforcement agents have aggressively used this power to search travelers’ laptops, sometimes copying the hard drive before returning the computer to its owner. Courts have ruled that such laptop searches can take place even in the absence of any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.

House, represented by the ACLU, sued the government in May 2011, arguing that the seizure was politically motivated and stifled his free-speech rights. House had been a founding member of the Bradley Manning Support Network, where he sat on the steering committee and did fundraising. Data from the Support Network, including donor information, was on the laptop, according to House.

In addition to organizing for Manning, House was a frequent visitor of the imprisoned Army private, and was the first to bring public attention to Manning’s harsh confinement conditions. But in mid-2011, Manning dropped him from his visitor’s list. Manning later testified that he didn’t approve of House’s frequent media appearances. “I just wanted somebody to talk to, you know, a friend,” he said, according to a transcript produced by independent journalist Alexa O’Brien. “Not somebody to– to take advantage of that, or use it as a soap box …”

“I got a lot of very nasty emails immediately after his testimony,” House said today. “I’ve lost a lot of fair weather friends and gained some who are more solid … The whole movement is not the fairy tale that lot of people, including myself, thought it would be.”

“How do I feel about Bradley these days? I definitely feel a little thrown under the bus,” says House.

Some time after Manning cut him off, House parted ways with the Free Bradley Manning movement, publicly criticized WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange, and announced over Twitter that was writing a tell-all book. The lawsuit, though, continued until last Thursday, when the government and the ACLU jointly filed a motion to dismiss (.pdf), without further comment. The Justice Department lawyer on the case and the ACLU didn’t immediately return phone calls after hours today.

Manning’s court martial is set to begin at Ft. Meade, Maryland on Monday.

Update: The ACLU confirms that DHS has agreed to purge itself of House’s data, and, further, is turning over a copy of documents and reports produced from the laptop search, including the DHS “Lookout” notice instructing agents to stop House. The settlement agreement follows.

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