http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/us-concerned-for-informants-as-wikileaks-publishes-134000-cables-20110830-1jkdn.html
US concerned for informants as WikiLeaks publishes 134,000 cables Scott Shane August 31, 2011 WASHINGTON: In a shift of tactics that has alarmed US officials, WikiLeaks has published nearly 134,000 leaked diplomatic cables online in recent days, more than six times the total disclosed publicly since the posting of the leaked US State Department documents began in November. A sampling of the documents showed that the newly published cables included the names of some people who had spoken confidentially to US diplomats and whose identities were marked in the cables with the warning ''strictly protect''. State Department officials and human rights activists have been concerned that such diplomatic sources, including activists, journalists and academics in authoritarian countries, could face reprisals, including dismissal from their jobs, prosecution or violence. Since late last year, several news organisations have had access to more than 250,000 State Department cables that were originally obtained by WikiLeaks, citing them in news articles and publishing a relatively small number of cables deemed newsworthy. But these publications had removed the names of people judged vulnerable to retaliation. WikiLeaks published some cables on its own website, but until the latest release the group had also provided versions of the cables that had been edited to protect low-level diplomatic sources. Government officials and journalists were poring over the newly released cables to assess whether people named in them might face repercussions. A quick sampling found at least one cable posted on Monday, from the US embassy in Australia, had a name removed, but several others left in the identities of people whom diplomats had flagged for protection. WikiLeaks said in a statement on Monday that the acceleration in disclosing the cables was ''in accordance with WikiLeaks' commitment to maximising impact and making information available to all''. The statement suggested that it was intended to counter the ''misperception'' that the organisation ''has been less active in recent months''. The statement said that ''crowdsourcing'' the documents by posting them would allow people of different backgrounds and nationalities to interpret the cables. It was unsigned, but the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, generally drafts or approves the group's statements. Even as WikiLeaks made its new postings, a German publication reported that an encrypted file containing all of the 251,287 diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks last year had been posted months ago on the web, and that the password was also available on the internet. It was unclear whether anyone had cracked the encrypted file described by the publication, Der Freitag, a small Berlin left-leaning weekly, and made public previously unpublished material. A State Department spokesman, Michael Hammer, said the department would not comment on the authenticity of the documents released. He said the United States ''strongly condemns any illegal disclosure of classified information''. The New York Times Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/us-concerned-for-informants-as-wikileaks-publishes-134000-cables-20110830-1jkdn.html#ixzz1WbY5QA3n [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
