United States diplomatic cables leak
Encyclopedia
The United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began in February 2010 when WikiLeaks
—a non-profit organization that publishes submissions from anonymous whistleblowers—began releasing classified
cables
that had been sent to the U.S. State Department
by 274 of its consulates, embassies, and diplomatic missions around the world. Dated between December 1966 and February 2010, the cables contain diplomatic analysis from world leaders, and the diplomats' assessment of host countries and their officials. According to WikiLeaks, the 251,287 cables consist of 261,276,536 words, making Cablegate the world's largest release of classified material.
The first document, the so-called Reykjavik 13 cable, was released by WikiLeaks on 18 February 2010, and was followed by the release of State Department profiles of Icelandic politicians a month later. In the summer of that year, Julian Assange
, WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief, reached an agreement with media partners in Europe and the United States to publish the rest of the cables in redacted form, removing the names of sources and others in vulnerable positions. On 28 November, the first 220 cables were published under this agreement by El País (Spain), Der Spiegel
(Germany), Le Monde
(France), The Guardian
(United Kingdom) and The New York Times
(United States). WikiLeaks had planned to release the rest over several months, and as of 11 January 2011, 2,017 had been published.
The remaining cables were published in September 2011 after a series of events compromised the security of a WikiLeaks file containing the cables. This included WikiLeaks volunteers placing an encrypted file containing all WikiLeaks data online as "insurance" in July 2010, in case something happened to the organization. In February 2011 David Leigh
of The Guardian published the encryption passphrase
in a book; he had received it from Assange so he could access a copy of the Cablegate file, and believed the passphrase was a temporary one, unique to that file. In August 2011 a German magazine, Der Freitag, published some of these details, enabling others to piece the information together. In response, WikiLeaks decided on 1 September 2011 to publish all 251,287 unedited documents.
The publication of the cables was the third in a series of U.S. classified document "mega-leaks" distributed by WikiLeaks in 2010, following the Afghan War documents leak in July, and the Iraq War documents leak
in October. Over 130,000 of the cables are unclassified, some 100,000 are labeled "confidential," around 15,000 have the higher classification "secret," and none are classified as "top secret" on the classification scale. Reactions to the leak in 2010 varied. Western governments expressed strong disapproval, while the material generated intense interest from the public and journalists. Some political leaders referred to Assange as a criminal, while blaming the U.S. Department of Defense
for security lapses. Supporters of Assange referred to him in November 2010 as a key defender of free speech and freedom of the press. Reaction to the release in September 2011 of the unredacted cables attracted stronger criticism, and was condemned by the five newspapers that had first published the cables in redacted form in November 2010.
reported that the U.S. State Department and embassy personnel were concerned that Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army soldier charged with the unauthorized download of classified material while he was stationed in Iraq, had leaked diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks rejected the report as inaccurate: "Allegations in Wired that we have been sent 260,000 classified U.S. embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect".
However, by June 2010 The Guardian had been offered "half a million military dispatches from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. There might be more after that, including an immense bundle of confidential diplomatic cables", and Alan Rusbridger
, the editor of The Guardian had contacted Bill Keller
, editor of The New York Times, to see if he would be interested in sharing the dissemination of the information.
Manning was suspected to have uploaded all of what he obtained to WikiLeaks, which chose to release the material in stages so as to have the greatest possible impact.
According to The Guardian, all the diplomatic cables were marked "Sipdis", denoting "secret internet protocol distribution", which means they had been distributed via the closed U.S. SIPRNet
, the U.S. Department of Defense’s classified version of the civilian internet. Although more than three million U.S. government personnel and soldiers have access to this network, "top secret" documents are not included in the system. Such a large quantity of secret information was available to a wide audience because, as The Guardian alleged, after the 11 September attacks an increased focus had been placed on sharing information since gaps in intra-governmental information sharing had been exposed. More specifically the diplomatic, military, law enforcement and intelligence communities would be able to do their jobs better with this easy access to analytic and operative information. A spokesman said that in the previous weeks and months additional measures had been taken to improve the security of the system and prevent leaks.
On 22 November, an announcement was made via WikiLeaks's Twitter feed that the next release would be "7× the size of the Iraq War Logs". U.S. authorities and the media had speculated, at the time, that they could contain diplomatic cables. Prior to the expected leak, the government of the United Kingdom (U.K.) sent a DA-Notice
to U.K. newspapers, which requested advance notice from newspapers regarding the expected publication. Index on Censorship
pointed out that "there is no obligation on [the] media to comply". Under the terms of a DA-Notice, "[n]ewspaper editors would speak to [the] Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee
prior to publication". David Leigh
and Luke Harding
, reporters for The Guardian
then working with Assange on the contents of the cables have stated that Assange was initially reluctant to redact the names of informants present in some of the cables, quoting him as saying "Well, they're informants, so if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." Assange was later persuaded that the cables should be redacted. The Guardian was revealed to have been the source of the copy of the documents given to The New York Times in order to prevent the British government from obtaining any injunction against its publication. The Pakistan
i newspaper Dawn
stated that the U.S. newspapers The New York Times and The Washington Post
were expected to publish parts of the diplomatic cables on 28 November, including 94 Pakistan-related documents.
On 26 November, Assange sent a letter to the U.S. Department of State, via his lawyer Jennifer Robinson, inviting them to "privately nominate any specific instances (record numbers or names) where it considers the publication of information would put individual persons at significant risk of harm that has not already been addressed". Harold Koh
, the Legal Adviser of the Department of State
, rejected the proposal, stating: "We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained U.S. Government classified materials". Assange responded by writing back to the U.S. State Department that "you have chosen to respond in a manner which leads me to conclude that the supposed risks are entirely fanciful and you are instead concerned to suppress evidence of human rights abuse and other criminal behaviour". Ahead of the leak, United States Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and other American officials contacted governments in several countries about the impending release.
WikiLeaks aims to release the cables in phases over several months due to their global scope and significance. The first batch of leaks released comprised 220 cables. Further cables were subsequently made available on the WikiLeaks website. The full set of cables published by WikiLeaks can be browsed at cablesearch.org.
The contents of the U.S. diplomatic cables leak describe in detail events and incidents surrounding international affairs from 274 embassies dating from 28 December 1966 to 28 February 2010. The diplomatic cables revealed numerous unguarded comments and revelations: critiques and praises about the host countries of various U.S. embassies, discussion and resolutions towards ending ongoing tension in the Middle East, efforts for and resistance against nuclear disarmament
, actions in the War on Terror
, assessments of other threats around the world, dealings between various countries, U.S. intelligence and counterintelligence efforts, U.S. support of dictatorship and other diplomatic actions.
The leaked cables revealed that diplomats of the U.S. and Britain eavesdropped on Secretary General Kofi Annan
in the weeks before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, in apparent violation of international treaties prohibiting spying at the UN.
Der Spiegel also released its preliminary report, with extended coverage promised for the next day. Its cover for 29 November was also leaked with the initial report.
The New York Times initially covered the story in a nine-part series spanning nine days, with the first story published simultaneously with the other outlets. The New York Times was not originally intended to receive the leak, allegedly due to its unflattering portrayal of the site's founder, but The Guardian decided to share coverage, citing earlier cooperation while covering the Afghan and Iraqi war logs.
The Washington Post reported that it also requested permission to see the documents, but was rejected for undisclosed reasons.
El País released its report saying there was an agreement between the newspapers for simultaneous publication of the "internationally relevant" documents, but that each newspaper was free to select and treat those documents that primarily relate to its own country.
Several of the newspapers coordinating with WikiLeaks have published some of the cables on their own websites.
The Lebanese
daily newspaper Al-Akhbar
published about 183 cables on 2 December 2010.
The Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet started reporting on the leaks early December. In Norway Verdens Gang
(VG) brought the first leaks concerning USA and the Norwegian government on 7 December.
Aftenposten
, a Norwegian
daily newspaper, reported on 17 December 2010 that it had gained access to the full cable set of 251,287 documents. While it is unclear how it received the documents, they were apparently not obtained directly from WikiLeaks. Aftenposten started releasing cables that are not available in the official WikiLeaks distribution. , it had released just over one hundred cables unpublished by WikiLeaks, with about a third of these related to Sri Lanka
, and many related to Norway.
Politiken
, a Danish
daily newspaper, announced on 8 January 2011 that it had obtained access to the full set of cables.
NRC
, a Dutch daily newspaper, and RTL Nieuws
, a Dutch television news service, announced on 14 January 2011 that they had gained access to the about 3000 cables sent from The Hague, via Aftenposten. NOS announced on the same day that it had obtained these same cables from Wikileaks.
Die Welt
, a German daily newspaper, announced on 17 January 2011 that they had gained access to the full set of cables, via Aftenposten.
Australian-based Fairfax Media
obtained access to the cables under a separate arrangement. Fairfax newspapers began releasing their own stories based on the leaked cables on 7 December 2010. Unlike other newspapers given access, Fairfax originally had not posted any of the original cables online, citing the need to maintain its competitive advantage over other Australian newspapers. However, on 16 December 2010, Fairfax reversed its position, and began publishing the cables used in its stories.
The Russian weekly newspaper Russky Reporter has published a large number of cables, both in English and in Russian translation.
The Cuban government-run website Razones de Cuba started publishing Spanish translations of WikiLeaks documents on 23 December 2010.
The Costa Rica
n newspaper La Nación
announced on 1 March 2011 it had received 827 cables from WikiLeaks which it started publishing the next day. 764 of these were sent from the U.S. Embassy in San José
while 63 were sent from other embassies and deal with Costa Rican affairs.
CNN
was originally supposed to receive an advance copy of the documents as well, but did not after it refused to sign a confidentiality
agreement with WikiLeaks. The Wall Street Journal
also refused advance access, apparently for similar reasons as CNN.
The Ecuador
ian newspaper El Universo
started releasing 343 cables related to the Ecuadorian government or institutions on 6 April 2011. The publication was done the day after the Spanish newspaper El Pais published a cable in which the ambassador Heather Hodges showed concerns regarding corruption in the Ecuadorian National Police, especially of Gral. Jaime Hurtado Vaca, former Police commander. The ambassador was later declared persona non grata and requested to leave the country as soon as possible.
, another Guardian journalist, published WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy via Guardian Books. In it, Leigh revealed the passphrase Assange had given him.
It is not yet clear how or when the encrypted file itself was released inadvertently. So far it appears that it was released to bittorrent as part of a mirror file for the Wikileaks web server on which it had been placed to aid in transferring the file from Wikileaks to Leigh, and either not removed due to oversight, or mirrored by other Wikileaks staff before it could be removed. The password leaked in Leigh's book is not the password for the whole of the "insurance file" which wikileaks published in a separate event. It also remains unclear if during the transfer process the file was exposed publicly under the assumption that it is acceptable to transfer an encrypted file in plain sight so long as the key remains secret.
A German weekly magazine, Der Freitag, published a story about it, and while it left out the crucial details, there was enough to allow others to piece the information together. By 1 September, the encrypted Cablegate file had been decrypted and published by a Twitter user, and WikiLeaks therefore decided to publish all the diplomatic cables unredacted. Their reasoning, according to Glenn Greenwald
in Salon, was that government intelligence agencies were able to find and read the files, while ordinary people—including journalists, whistleblowers, and those directly affected—were not. WikiLeaks took the view that sources could better protect themselves if the information were equally available. The archive includes 34,687 files on Iraq, 8,003 on Kuwait, 9,755 on Australia, and 12,606 on Egypt. According to The Guardian, it includes more than 1,000 cables containing the names of individual activists, and around 150 identifying whistleblowers.
Leigh disclaimed responsibility for the release, saying Assange had assured him the password would expire hours after it was disclosed to him. The Guardian wrote that the decision to publish the cables was made by Assange alone, a decision that it—and its four previous media partners—condemned. The partners released a joint statement saying the uncensored publication put sources at risk of dismissal, detention and physical harm, while other commentators have agreed with Wikileaks' rationale for the release of unredacted cables. Leigh was nevertheless criticized by several commentators, including Glenn Greenwald, who called the publication of the password "reckless," arguing that, even if it had been a temporary one, publishing it divulged the type of passwords WikiLeaks was using. WikiLeaks said it was pursuing pre-litigation action against The Guardian for an alleged breach of a confidentiality agreement.
army commanders who communicated with US Ambassador Charles A. Ray
was launched, with the two facing a possible court martial. On September 14 the Committee to Protect Journalists
said that an Ethiopian journalist named in the cables was forced to flee the country but WikiLeaks accused the CPJ of distorting the situation "for marketing purposes." Al Jazeera
replaced its news director, Wadah Khanfar
, on September 20 after he was identified in the cables. The naming of mainland China residents reportedly "sparked an online witch-hunt by Chinese nationalist groups, with some advocating violence against those now known to have met with U.S. Embassy staff."
According to Arbor Networks
, an Internet-analyst group, the DDoS attack accounted for between two and four gigabit
s per second (Gbit/s) of additional traffic to the WikiLeaks host network, compared to an average traffic of between twelve and fifteen Gbit/s under ordinary conditions. The attack was slightly more powerful than ordinary DDoS attacks, though well below the maximum of 60 to 100 Gbit/s of other major attacks during 2010. The attack was claimed to have been carried out by a person by the name of "Jester
", who describes himself as a "hacktivist
". Jester took credit for the attack on Twitter, stating that WikiLeaks "threaten[ed] the lives of our troops and 'other assets.'"
On 2 December 2010, EveryDNS
, who provide a free DNS hosting service
, dropped WikiLeaks from its entries, citing DDoS attacks that "threatened the stability of its infrastructure", but the site was still reachable at http://46.59.1.2 and http://213.251.145.96, as well as several other addresses.
John Perry Barlow
, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
, wrote a tweet saying: "The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops."
removed WikiLeaks from its servers on 1 December 2010 at 19:30 GMT, and the latter website was unreachable until 20:17 GMT when the site had defaulted to its Swedish servers, hosted by Bahnhof
. U.S. Senator
Joe Lieberman
, among the members of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
who had questioned Amazon in private communication on the company's hosting of WikiLeaks and the illegally obtained documents, commended Amazon for the action; WikiLeaks, however, responded by stating on its official Twitter page that "WikiLeaks servers at Amazon ousted. Free speech the land of the free—fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe", and later that "If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment
, they should get out of the business of selling books".
On 4 December, Paypal
cut off the account used by WikiLeaks to collect donations.
On 6 December, the Swiss bank PostFinance
announced that it had frozen the assets of Assange; on the same day, MasterCard
stopped payments to WikiLeaks, with Visa following them on 7 December.
Official efforts by the U.S. government to limit access to, conversation about, and general spread of the cables leaked by WikiLeaks were revealed by leading media organizations. A 4 December 2010 article by MSNBC
, reported that the Obama administration has warned federal government employees and students in educational institutions studying towards careers in public service that they must refrain from downloading or linking to any WikiLeaks documents. However, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley denied ordering students, stating, "We do not control private networks. We have issued no authoritative instructions to people who are not employees of the Department of State." He said the warning was from an "overzealous employee." According to a 3 December 2010 article in The Guardian, access to WikiLeaks has been blocked for federal workers. The U.S. Library of Congress
, the U.S. Commerce Department
and other government agencies have confirmed that the ban is already in place.
A spokesman for Columbia University
confirmed on 4 December that its Office of Career Services sent an e-mail warning students at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs to refrain from accessing WikiLeaks cables and discussing this subject on the grounds that "discourse about the documents would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information". However, this was quickly retracted on the following day. SIPA Dean John Henry Coatsworth wrote that "Freedom of information and expression is a core value of our institution, [...] thus, SIPA’s position is that students have a right to discuss and debate any information in the public arena that they deem relevant to their studies or to their roles as global citizens, and to do so without fear of adverse consequences."
The New York Times reported on 14 December that the U.S. Air Force
bars its personnel from access to news sites (such as those of The New York Times and The Guardian) that publish leaked cables.
On 18 December, the Bank of America
stopped handling payments for WikiLeaks. Bank of America is also blocking access to WikiLeaks from its internal network preventing employees from accessing WikiLeaks.
of the cable leaks, internet group Anonymous
attacked several websites using DDoS. So far, the websites of the Swedish prosecutor, PostFinance, the Swiss post-office banking company, MasterCard and Visa have all been targeted.
The websites of the government of Zimbabwe
were targeted by Anonymous with DDoS attacks due to censorship of the WikiLeaks documents. The websites of the government of Tunisia
were targeted by Anonymous due to censorship of the WikiLeaks documents and the ongoing Tunisian revolution
. Tunisians were reported to be assisting in these denial-of-service attacks launched by Anonymous. Anonymous's role in the DDoS attacks on the Tunisian government's websites have led to an upsurge of internet activism among Tunisians against the government. Anonymous released an online message denouncing the government clampdown on recent protests and posted it on the Tunisian government website http://www.pm.gov.tn/. Screenshot of the message Anonymous has named their attacks as "Operation Tunisia". Anonymous successfully DDoSsed eight Tunisian government websites. They plan attacks in Internet Relay Chat networks. Someone attacked Anonymous's website with a DDoS on 5 January.
i newspapers (such as The News International
, The Express Tribune
and the Daily Jang
) and television channels carried stories that claimed to detail U.S. diplomats' assessments of senior India
n generals as "vain, egotistical and genocidal", also saying "India's government is secretly allied with Hindu
fundamentalists", and that "Indian spies are covertly supporting Islamist militants in Pakistan's tribal belt and Balochistan
." However, none of the cables revealed any such assessments. The claims were credited to an Islamabad
-based news service agency that has frequently run pro-Pakistan Army
stories in the past.
Later, The News International admitted the story "was dubious and may have been planted", and The Express Tribune offered "profuse" apologies to readers. Urdu-language papers such as the Daily Jang, however, declined to retract the story.
, Jacob Appelbaum
and Birgitta Jonsdottir
. According to Salon.com
journalist Glenn Greenwald
, the court "gave Twitter three days to respond and barred the company from notifying anyone, including the users, of the existence of the Order." Twitter requested that it be allowed to notify the users, giving them ten days to object. The court order was unsealed on 5 January 2011, and Jonsdottir decided to publicly fight the order.
Elected representatives of Iceland have declared such actions by the U.S. government "serious", "peculiar", "outlandish", and akin to heavy breathing on the telephone. The published subpoena text demands "you are to provide ... subscriber names, user names ... mailing addresses, residential addresses, business addresses ... telephone number[s] ... credit card or bank account number[s] ... billing records", "as well as 'destination email addresses and IP addresses". As of 10 January 2011, there were 636,759 followers of the WikiLeaks Twitter feed with destination email addresses and IP addresses.
and government overthrow. Foreign Policy
magazine said, "We might also count Tunisia as the first time that WikiLeaks pushed people over the brink." Additionally, the New York Times said, "The protesters...found grist for the complaints in leaked cables from the United States Embassy in Tunisia, released by WikiLeaks, that detailed the self-dealing and excess of the president’s family."
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
—a non-profit organization that publishes submissions from anonymous whistleblowers—began releasing classified
Classified information
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
cables
Diplomatic cable
A diplomatic cable, also known as a diplomatic telegram or embassy cable, is the term given to a confidential text message exchanged between a diplomatic mission, like an embassy or a consulate, and the foreign ministry of its parent country....
that had been sent to the U.S. State Department
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
by 274 of its consulates, embassies, and diplomatic missions around the world. Dated between December 1966 and February 2010, the cables contain diplomatic analysis from world leaders, and the diplomats' assessment of host countries and their officials. According to WikiLeaks, the 251,287 cables consist of 261,276,536 words, making Cablegate the world's largest release of classified material.
The first document, the so-called Reykjavik 13 cable, was released by WikiLeaks on 18 February 2010, and was followed by the release of State Department profiles of Icelandic politicians a month later. In the summer of that year, Julian Assange
Julian Assange
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian publisher, journalist, writer, computer programmer and Internet activist. He is the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website and conduit for worldwide news leaks with the stated purpose of creating open governments.WikiLeaks has published material...
, WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief, reached an agreement with media partners in Europe and the United States to publish the rest of the cables in redacted form, removing the names of sources and others in vulnerable positions. On 28 November, the first 220 cables were published under this agreement by El País (Spain), Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
(Germany), Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
(France), The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
(United Kingdom) and The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
(United States). WikiLeaks had planned to release the rest over several months, and as of 11 January 2011, 2,017 had been published.
The remaining cables were published in September 2011 after a series of events compromised the security of a WikiLeaks file containing the cables. This included WikiLeaks volunteers placing an encrypted file containing all WikiLeaks data online as "insurance" in July 2010, in case something happened to the organization. In February 2011 David Leigh
David Leigh
David Leigh is a British journalist and author, currently investigations executive editor of The Guardian.-Early life:Leigh was born in 1946 and educated at Nottingham High School and King's College, Cambridge, receiving a research degree from Cambridge in 1968.-Career:Leigh has been a prominent...
of The Guardian published the encryption passphrase
Passphrase
A passphrase is a sequence of words or other text used to control access to a computer system, program or data. A passphrase is similar to a password in usage, but is generally longer for added security. Passphrases are often used to control both access to, and operation of, cryptographic programs...
in a book; he had received it from Assange so he could access a copy of the Cablegate file, and believed the passphrase was a temporary one, unique to that file. In August 2011 a German magazine, Der Freitag, published some of these details, enabling others to piece the information together. In response, WikiLeaks decided on 1 September 2011 to publish all 251,287 unedited documents.
The publication of the cables was the third in a series of U.S. classified document "mega-leaks" distributed by WikiLeaks in 2010, following the Afghan War documents leak in July, and the Iraq War documents leak
Iraq War documents leak
The Iraq War documents leak is the unsanctioned disclosure of a collection of 391,832 United States Army field reports, also called the Iraq War Logs, of the Iraq War from 2004 to 2009 to several international media organizations and published on the Internet by WikiLeaks on 2010. The files record...
in October. Over 130,000 of the cables are unclassified, some 100,000 are labeled "confidential," around 15,000 have the higher classification "secret," and none are classified as "top secret" on the classification scale. Reactions to the leak in 2010 varied. Western governments expressed strong disapproval, while the material generated intense interest from the public and journalists. Some political leaders referred to Assange as a criminal, while blaming the U.S. Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
for security lapses. Supporters of Assange referred to him in November 2010 as a key defender of free speech and freedom of the press. Reaction to the release in September 2011 of the unredacted cables attracted stronger criticism, and was condemned by the five newspapers that had first published the cables in redacted form in November 2010.
Background
In June 2010, the magazine WiredWired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
reported that the U.S. State Department and embassy personnel were concerned that Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army soldier charged with the unauthorized download of classified material while he was stationed in Iraq, had leaked diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks rejected the report as inaccurate: "Allegations in Wired that we have been sent 260,000 classified U.S. embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect".
However, by June 2010 The Guardian had been offered "half a million military dispatches from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. There might be more after that, including an immense bundle of confidential diplomatic cables", and Alan Rusbridger
Alan Rusbridger
Alan Charles Rusbridger is the editor of the British newspaper The Guardian. He has also been a reporter and a columnist.-Early life:...
, the editor of The Guardian had contacted Bill Keller
Bill Keller
Bill Keller is a writer for the The New York Times, of which Keller was the executive editor from July 2003 until September 2011. On June 2, 2011, Keller announced that he would step down from the position to become a full-time writer...
, editor of The New York Times, to see if he would be interested in sharing the dissemination of the information.
Manning was suspected to have uploaded all of what he obtained to WikiLeaks, which chose to release the material in stages so as to have the greatest possible impact.
According to The Guardian, all the diplomatic cables were marked "Sipdis", denoting "secret internet protocol distribution", which means they had been distributed via the closed U.S. SIPRNet
SIPRNet
The Secret Internet Protocol Router Network is "a system of interconnected computer networks used by the United States Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State to transmit classified information by packet switching over the TCP/IP protocols in a 'completely secure' environment"...
, the U.S. Department of Defense’s classified version of the civilian internet. Although more than three million U.S. government personnel and soldiers have access to this network, "top secret" documents are not included in the system. Such a large quantity of secret information was available to a wide audience because, as The Guardian alleged, after the 11 September attacks an increased focus had been placed on sharing information since gaps in intra-governmental information sharing had been exposed. More specifically the diplomatic, military, law enforcement and intelligence communities would be able to do their jobs better with this easy access to analytic and operative information. A spokesman said that in the previous weeks and months additional measures had been taken to improve the security of the system and prevent leaks.
DA-Notice
A DA-Notice or Defence Advisory Notice is an official request to news editors not to publish or broadcast items on specified subjects for reasons of national security...
to U.K. newspapers, which requested advance notice from newspapers regarding the expected publication. Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship is a campaigning publishing organisation for freedom of expression, which produces an award-winning quarterly magazine of the same name from London. The present chief executive of Index on Censorship, since 2008, is the author, broadcaster and commentator John Kampfner, former...
pointed out that "there is no obligation on [the] media to comply". Under the terms of a DA-Notice, "[n]ewspaper editors would speak to [the] Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee
Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee
The Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee is the British advisory body which issues DA-Notices. The secretary is a former two-star military officer employed from a Ministry of Defence budget and is housed by them and the committee is made up of senior civil servants and...
prior to publication". David Leigh
David Leigh
David Leigh is a British journalist and author, currently investigations executive editor of The Guardian.-Early life:Leigh was born in 1946 and educated at Nottingham High School and King's College, Cambridge, receiving a research degree from Cambridge in 1968.-Career:Leigh has been a prominent...
and Luke Harding
Luke Harding
Luke Daniel Harding is a British political journalist working for The Guardian newspaper, formerly based in Russia.-Early life, education and career:...
, reporters for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
then working with Assange on the contents of the cables have stated that Assange was initially reluctant to redact the names of informants present in some of the cables, quoting him as saying "Well, they're informants, so if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." Assange was later persuaded that the cables should be redacted. The Guardian was revealed to have been the source of the copy of the documents given to The New York Times in order to prevent the British government from obtaining any injunction against its publication. The Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i newspaper Dawn
Dawn (newspaper)
Dawn is Pakistan's oldest and most widely read English-language newspaper. One of the country's two largest English-language dailies, it is the flagship of the Dawn Group of Newspapers, published by Pakistan Herald Publications, which also owns the Herald, a magazine, the evening paper The Star and...
stated that the U.S. newspapers The New York Times and The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
were expected to publish parts of the diplomatic cables on 28 November, including 94 Pakistan-related documents.
On 26 November, Assange sent a letter to the U.S. Department of State, via his lawyer Jennifer Robinson, inviting them to "privately nominate any specific instances (record numbers or names) where it considers the publication of information would put individual persons at significant risk of harm that has not already been addressed". Harold Koh
Harold Hongju Koh
Harold Hongju Koh is an Korean American lawyer and legal scholar. He currently serves as the Legal Adviser of the Department of State. He was nominated to his current position by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2009, and confirmed by the Senate on June 25, 2009.In public service, Koh...
, the Legal Adviser of the Department of State
Legal Adviser of the Department of State
The Legal Adviser of the Department of State is a position within the United States Department of State. It was created by an Act of Congress on February 23, 1931 and given a rank equivalent to that of an Assistant Secretary...
, rejected the proposal, stating: "We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained U.S. Government classified materials". Assange responded by writing back to the U.S. State Department that "you have chosen to respond in a manner which leads me to conclude that the supposed risks are entirely fanciful and you are instead concerned to suppress evidence of human rights abuse and other criminal behaviour". Ahead of the leak, United States Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Hillary Clinton and other American officials contacted governments in several countries about the impending release.
November 2010 release of redacted cables
The five newspapers that had obtained an advance copy of all leaked cables began releasing the cables on 28 November 2010, and WikiLeaks made the cables selected by these newspapers and redacted by their journalists available on its website. "They are releasing the documents we selected," Le Mondes managing editor, Sylvie Kauffmann, said in an interview.WikiLeaks aims to release the cables in phases over several months due to their global scope and significance. The first batch of leaks released comprised 220 cables. Further cables were subsequently made available on the WikiLeaks website. The full set of cables published by WikiLeaks can be browsed at cablesearch.org.
Contents
| Subject | Documents |
|---|---|
| External political relations | 145,451 |
| Internal government affairs | 122,896 |
| Human rights | 55,211 |
| Economic conditions | 49,044 |
| Terrorists and terrorism | 28,801 |
| UN Security Council | 6,532 |
The contents of the U.S. diplomatic cables leak describe in detail events and incidents surrounding international affairs from 274 embassies dating from 28 December 1966 to 28 February 2010. The diplomatic cables revealed numerous unguarded comments and revelations: critiques and praises about the host countries of various U.S. embassies, discussion and resolutions towards ending ongoing tension in the Middle East, efforts for and resistance against nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated....
, actions in the War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
, assessments of other threats around the world, dealings between various countries, U.S. intelligence and counterintelligence efforts, U.S. support of dictatorship and other diplomatic actions.
The leaked cables revealed that diplomats of the U.S. and Britain eavesdropped on Secretary General Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
in the weeks before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, in apparent violation of international treaties prohibiting spying at the UN.
Coverage
The Guardian released its coverage of the leaked cables in numerous articles, including an interactive database, starting on 28 November.Der Spiegel also released its preliminary report, with extended coverage promised for the next day. Its cover for 29 November was also leaked with the initial report.
The New York Times initially covered the story in a nine-part series spanning nine days, with the first story published simultaneously with the other outlets. The New York Times was not originally intended to receive the leak, allegedly due to its unflattering portrayal of the site's founder, but The Guardian decided to share coverage, citing earlier cooperation while covering the Afghan and Iraqi war logs.
The Washington Post reported that it also requested permission to see the documents, but was rejected for undisclosed reasons.
El País released its report saying there was an agreement between the newspapers for simultaneous publication of the "internationally relevant" documents, but that each newspaper was free to select and treat those documents that primarily relate to its own country.
Several of the newspapers coordinating with WikiLeaks have published some of the cables on their own websites.
The Lebanese
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
daily newspaper Al-Akhbar
Al Akhbar (Lebanon)
-History:The newspaper started printing and distribution in July 2006. It was established by Joseph Samaha and Brahim El Ameen, both considered to be among the most renowned Lebanese journalists. Samaha died from a stroke few months after the publishing of the paper...
published about 183 cables on 2 December 2010.
The Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet started reporting on the leaks early December. In Norway Verdens Gang
Verdens Gang
Verdens Gang , generally known under the abbreviation VG, is a Norwegian tabloid newspaper...
(VG) brought the first leaks concerning USA and the Norwegian government on 7 December.
Aftenposten
Aftenposten
Aftenposten is Norway's largest newspaper. It retook this position in 2010, taking it from the tabloid Verdens Gang which had been the largest newspaper for several decades. It is based in Oslo. The morning edition, which is distributed across all of Norway, had a circulation of 250,179 in 2007...
, a Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
daily newspaper, reported on 17 December 2010 that it had gained access to the full cable set of 251,287 documents. While it is unclear how it received the documents, they were apparently not obtained directly from WikiLeaks. Aftenposten started releasing cables that are not available in the official WikiLeaks distribution. , it had released just over one hundred cables unpublished by WikiLeaks, with about a third of these related to Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, and many related to Norway.
Politiken
Politiken
Politiken is a Danish daily broadsheet newspaper, published by JP/Politikens Hus.The newspaper comes third among Danish newspapers in terms of both number of readers and circulated copies ....
, a Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
daily newspaper, announced on 8 January 2011 that it had obtained access to the full set of cables.
NRC
NRC Handelsblad
NRC Handelsblad, often abbreviated to NRC, is a daily evening newspaper published in the Netherlands by NRC Media. The newspaper was created on October 1, 1970, from merger of the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant and Algemeen Handelsblad . In 2006 a morning newspaper, nrc•next, was launched...
, a Dutch daily newspaper, and RTL Nieuws
RTL Nieuws
RTL Nieuws is a Dutch television news service produced by RTL Nederland. The national and international news service produces 17 bulletins each weekday and six weekend bulletins for RTL4 and RTL7, reaching a total audience of about 1.5 million people...
, a Dutch television news service, announced on 14 January 2011 that they had gained access to the about 3000 cables sent from The Hague, via Aftenposten. NOS announced on the same day that it had obtained these same cables from Wikileaks.
Die Welt
Die Welt
Die Welt is a German national daily newspaper published by the Axel Springer AG company.It was founded in Hamburg in 1946 by the British occupying forces, aiming to provide a "quality newspaper" modelled on The Times...
, a German daily newspaper, announced on 17 January 2011 that they had gained access to the full set of cables, via Aftenposten.
Australian-based Fairfax Media
Fairfax Media
Fairfax Media Limited is one of Australia's largest diversified media companies. The group's operations include newspapers, magazines, radios and digital media operating in Australia and New Zealand. Fairfax Media was founded by the Fairfax family as John Fairfax and Sons, later to become John...
obtained access to the cables under a separate arrangement. Fairfax newspapers began releasing their own stories based on the leaked cables on 7 December 2010. Unlike other newspapers given access, Fairfax originally had not posted any of the original cables online, citing the need to maintain its competitive advantage over other Australian newspapers. However, on 16 December 2010, Fairfax reversed its position, and began publishing the cables used in its stories.
The Russian weekly newspaper Russky Reporter has published a large number of cables, both in English and in Russian translation.
The Cuban government-run website Razones de Cuba started publishing Spanish translations of WikiLeaks documents on 23 December 2010.
The Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
n newspaper La Nación
La Nación (San José)
La Nación is a Costa Rican newspaper published in San José, Costa Rica. The newspaper is a general purpose newspaper, and circulates daily all year long, except on three Costa Rican holidays, Good Friday and the following Saturday, and the day after the New Year's Day.- History :La Nación was...
announced on 1 March 2011 it had received 827 cables from WikiLeaks which it started publishing the next day. 764 of these were sent from the U.S. Embassy in San José
San José, Costa Rica
San José is the capital and largest city of Costa Rica. Located in the Central Valley, San José is the seat of national government, the focal point of political and economic activity, and the major transportation hub of this Central American nation.Founded in 1738 by order of Cabildo de León, San...
while 63 were sent from other embassies and deal with Costa Rican affairs.
CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
was originally supposed to receive an advance copy of the documents as well, but did not after it refused to sign a confidentiality
Confidentiality
Confidentiality is an ethical principle associated with several professions . In ethics, and in law and alternative forms of legal resolution such as mediation, some types of communication between a person and one of these professionals are "privileged" and may not be discussed or divulged to...
agreement with WikiLeaks. The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
also refused advance access, apparently for similar reasons as CNN.
The Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
ian newspaper El Universo
El Universo
Diario El Universo is one of the largest daily newspapers in Ecuador. It was founded in 1921 and the first edition was published September 16 of the same year. Its headquarters are located in Guayaquil....
started releasing 343 cables related to the Ecuadorian government or institutions on 6 April 2011. The publication was done the day after the Spanish newspaper El Pais published a cable in which the ambassador Heather Hodges showed concerns regarding corruption in the Ecuadorian National Police, especially of Gral. Jaime Hurtado Vaca, former Police commander. The ambassador was later declared persona non grata and requested to leave the country as soon as possible.
September 2011 release of unredacted cables
In August 2010, Assange gave Guardian journalist David Leigh an encryption passphrase and a URL where he could locate just the encrypted, full unredacted Cablegate file. In February 2011, shortly before Domscheit-Berg's book appeared, he and Luke HardingLuke Harding
Luke Daniel Harding is a British political journalist working for The Guardian newspaper, formerly based in Russia.-Early life, education and career:...
, another Guardian journalist, published WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy via Guardian Books. In it, Leigh revealed the passphrase Assange had given him.
It is not yet clear how or when the encrypted file itself was released inadvertently. So far it appears that it was released to bittorrent as part of a mirror file for the Wikileaks web server on which it had been placed to aid in transferring the file from Wikileaks to Leigh, and either not removed due to oversight, or mirrored by other Wikileaks staff before it could be removed. The password leaked in Leigh's book is not the password for the whole of the "insurance file" which wikileaks published in a separate event. It also remains unclear if during the transfer process the file was exposed publicly under the assumption that it is acceptable to transfer an encrypted file in plain sight so long as the key remains secret.
A German weekly magazine, Der Freitag, published a story about it, and while it left out the crucial details, there was enough to allow others to piece the information together. By 1 September, the encrypted Cablegate file had been decrypted and published by a Twitter user, and WikiLeaks therefore decided to publish all the diplomatic cables unredacted. Their reasoning, according to Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is an American lawyer, columnist, blogger, and author. Greenwald worked as a constitutional and civil rights litigator before becoming a contributor to Salon.com, where he focuses on political and legal topics...
in Salon, was that government intelligence agencies were able to find and read the files, while ordinary people—including journalists, whistleblowers, and those directly affected—were not. WikiLeaks took the view that sources could better protect themselves if the information were equally available. The archive includes 34,687 files on Iraq, 8,003 on Kuwait, 9,755 on Australia, and 12,606 on Egypt. According to The Guardian, it includes more than 1,000 cables containing the names of individual activists, and around 150 identifying whistleblowers.
Leigh disclaimed responsibility for the release, saying Assange had assured him the password would expire hours after it was disclosed to him. The Guardian wrote that the decision to publish the cables was made by Assange alone, a decision that it—and its four previous media partners—condemned. The partners released a joint statement saying the uncensored publication put sources at risk of dismissal, detention and physical harm, while other commentators have agreed with Wikileaks' rationale for the release of unredacted cables. Leigh was nevertheless criticized by several commentators, including Glenn Greenwald, who called the publication of the password "reckless," arguing that, even if it had been a temporary one, publishing it divulged the type of passwords WikiLeaks was using. WikiLeaks said it was pursuing pre-litigation action against The Guardian for an alleged breach of a confidentiality agreement.
Consequences of the release
An investigation into two senior ZimbabweZimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
army commanders who communicated with US Ambassador Charles A. Ray
Charles A. Ray
Charles Aaron Ray has been the U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe since 2009. He is a Foreign Service Officer, career member of the Senior Foreign Service, author, and retired U.S...
was launched, with the two facing a possible court martial. On September 14 the Committee to Protect Journalists
Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent nonprofit organisation based in New York City that promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists.-History:A group of U.S...
said that an Ethiopian journalist named in the cables was forced to flee the country but WikiLeaks accused the CPJ of distorting the situation "for marketing purposes." Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera is an independent broadcaster owned by the state of Qatar through the Qatar Media Corporation and headquartered in Doha, Qatar...
replaced its news director, Wadah Khanfar
Wadah Khanfar
Wadah Khanfar was the Director General of the Al Jazeera Network. He has been ranked by Fast Company as the first in the 100 Most Creative People in Business and as one of the most ‘Powerful People in the World’ by Forbes Magazine...
, on September 20 after he was identified in the cables. The naming of mainland China residents reportedly "sparked an online witch-hunt by Chinese nationalist groups, with some advocating violence against those now known to have met with U.S. Embassy staff."
Denial-of-service attack
About an hour prior to the planned release of the initial documents, WikiLeaks announced it was experiencing a massive distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS), but vowed to still release the cables and documents via pre-agreed prominent media outlets El País, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and The New York Times.According to Arbor Networks
Arbor Networks
Arbor Networks is a software company founded in 2000 and based in Chemsford, Massachusetts, United States, which sells network security and network monitoring software, used – according to the company's claims – by over 70% of all Internet service providers...
, an Internet-analyst group, the DDoS attack accounted for between two and four gigabit
Gigabit
The gigabit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information or computer storage. The prefix giga is defined in the International System of Units as a multiplier of 109 , and therefore...
s per second (Gbit/s) of additional traffic to the WikiLeaks host network, compared to an average traffic of between twelve and fifteen Gbit/s under ordinary conditions. The attack was slightly more powerful than ordinary DDoS attacks, though well below the maximum of 60 to 100 Gbit/s of other major attacks during 2010. The attack was claimed to have been carried out by a person by the name of "Jester
The Jester (hacktivist)
The Jester is a computer vigilante who describes himself as gray hat "hacktivist." He or she claims to be responsible for attacks on WikiLeaks, 4chan, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Islamist websites. He claims to be acting out of American patriotism...
", who describes himself as a "hacktivist
Hacktivism
Hacktivism is the use of computers and computer networks as a means of protest to promote political ends. The term was first coined in 1994 by a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective named Omega...
". Jester took credit for the attack on Twitter, stating that WikiLeaks "threaten[ed] the lives of our troops and 'other assets.'"
On 2 December 2010, EveryDNS
EveryDNS
EveryDNS.net was one of the world's largest free DNS management services, at one time providing DNS services for over 135,000 domains.- History :EveryDNS was founded in June 2001 by David Ulevitch. On the 7th of January 2010 EveryDNS was purchased by Dyn Inc....
, who provide a free DNS hosting service
DNS hosting service
A DNS hosting service is a service that runs Domain Name System servers. Most, but not all, domain name registrars include DNS hosting service with registration. Free DNS hosting services also exist...
, dropped WikiLeaks from its entries, citing DDoS attacks that "threatened the stability of its infrastructure", but the site was still reachable at http://46.59.1.2 and http://213.251.145.96, as well as several other addresses.
John Perry Barlow
John Perry Barlow
John Perry Barlow is an American poet and essayist, a retired Wyoming cattle rancher, and a cyberlibertarian political activist who has been associated with both the Democratic and Republican parties. He is also a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead and a founding member of the Electronic...
, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
, wrote a tweet saying: "The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops."
Dropping of hosting, finance services, and accessibility
Amazon.comAmazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
removed WikiLeaks from its servers on 1 December 2010 at 19:30 GMT, and the latter website was unreachable until 20:17 GMT when the site had defaulted to its Swedish servers, hosted by Bahnhof
Bahnhof
Bahnhof is a Swedish Internet service provider founded in 1994 by Oscar Swartz in Uppsala and was the first independent ISP in Sweden. Today the company is represented in Stockholm, Göteborg, Uppsala, Borlänge, and Lund....
. U.S. Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Joe Lieberman
Joe Lieberman
Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman is the senior United States Senator from Connecticut. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election. Currently an independent, he remains closely affiliated with the party.Born in Stamford, Connecticut,...
, among the members of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has jurisdiction over matters related to the Department of Homeland Security and other homeland security concerns, as well as the functioning of the government itself, including the National Archives, budget and...
who had questioned Amazon in private communication on the company's hosting of WikiLeaks and the illegally obtained documents, commended Amazon for the action; WikiLeaks, however, responded by stating on its official Twitter page that "WikiLeaks servers at Amazon ousted. Free speech the land of the free—fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe", and later that "If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
, they should get out of the business of selling books".
On 4 December, Paypal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
cut off the account used by WikiLeaks to collect donations.
On 6 December, the Swiss bank PostFinance
PostFinance
PostFinance is founded in 1906 and the financial services unit of Swiss Post, and the fifth largest retail financial institution in Switzerland...
announced that it had frozen the assets of Assange; on the same day, MasterCard
MasterCard
Mastercard Incorporated or MasterCard Worldwide is an American multinational financial services corporation with its headquarters in the MasterCard International Global Headquarters, Purchase, Harrison, New York, United States...
stopped payments to WikiLeaks, with Visa following them on 7 December.
Official efforts by the U.S. government to limit access to, conversation about, and general spread of the cables leaked by WikiLeaks were revealed by leading media organizations. A 4 December 2010 article by MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
, reported that the Obama administration has warned federal government employees and students in educational institutions studying towards careers in public service that they must refrain from downloading or linking to any WikiLeaks documents. However, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley denied ordering students, stating, "We do not control private networks. We have issued no authoritative instructions to people who are not employees of the Department of State." He said the warning was from an "overzealous employee." According to a 3 December 2010 article in The Guardian, access to WikiLeaks has been blocked for federal workers. The U.S. Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, the U.S. Commerce Department
United States Department of Commerce
The United States Department of Commerce is the Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with promoting economic growth. It was originally created as the United States Department of Commerce and Labor on February 14, 1903...
and other government agencies have confirmed that the ban is already in place.
A spokesman for Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
confirmed on 4 December that its Office of Career Services sent an e-mail warning students at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs to refrain from accessing WikiLeaks cables and discussing this subject on the grounds that "discourse about the documents would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information". However, this was quickly retracted on the following day. SIPA Dean John Henry Coatsworth wrote that "Freedom of information and expression is a core value of our institution, [...] thus, SIPA’s position is that students have a right to discuss and debate any information in the public arena that they deem relevant to their studies or to their roles as global citizens, and to do so without fear of adverse consequences."
The New York Times reported on 14 December that the U.S. Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
bars its personnel from access to news sites (such as those of The New York Times and The Guardian) that publish leaked cables.
On 18 December, the Bank of America
Bank of America
Bank of America Corporation, an American multinational banking and financial services corporation, is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets, and the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by market capitalization. The bank is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina...
stopped handling payments for WikiLeaks. Bank of America is also blocking access to WikiLeaks from its internal network preventing employees from accessing WikiLeaks.
Anonymous and anti-censorship
In response to perceived federal and corporate censorshipCorporate censorship
Corporate censorship is censorship by corporations, the sanctioning of speech by spokespersons, employees, and business associates by threat of monetary loss, loss of employment, or loss of access to the marketplace.- TV Guide debate :...
of the cable leaks, internet group Anonymous
Anonymous (group)
Anonymous is an international hacking group, spread through the Internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, the term refers to the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic,...
attacked several websites using DDoS. So far, the websites of the Swedish prosecutor, PostFinance, the Swiss post-office banking company, MasterCard and Visa have all been targeted.
The websites of the government of Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
were targeted by Anonymous with DDoS attacks due to censorship of the WikiLeaks documents. The websites of the government of Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
were targeted by Anonymous due to censorship of the WikiLeaks documents and the ongoing Tunisian revolution
Tunisian revolution
The Tunisian Revolution is an intensive campaign of civil resistance, including a series of street demonstrations taking place in Tunisia. The events began in December 2010 and led to the ousting of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011...
. Tunisians were reported to be assisting in these denial-of-service attacks launched by Anonymous. Anonymous's role in the DDoS attacks on the Tunisian government's websites have led to an upsurge of internet activism among Tunisians against the government. Anonymous released an online message denouncing the government clampdown on recent protests and posted it on the Tunisian government website http://www.pm.gov.tn/. Screenshot of the message Anonymous has named their attacks as "Operation Tunisia". Anonymous successfully DDoSsed eight Tunisian government websites. They plan attacks in Internet Relay Chat networks. Someone attacked Anonymous's website with a DDoS on 5 January.
Manipulation of news based on WikiLeaks cables
On 9 December 2010, major PakistanPakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i newspapers (such as The News International
The News International
The News International , published in tabloid size, is the largest English language newspaper in Pakistan. The News has an ABC certified circulation of 140,000. It is published from Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi/Islamabad...
, The Express Tribune
The Express Tribune
The Express Tribune is the first internationally affiliated newspaper in Pakistan, in partnership with The International Herald Tribune, the global edition of The New York Times....
and the Daily Jang
Daily Jang
The Daily Jang is an Urdu newspaper based in Pakistan. It is the oldest newspaper of Pakistan in continuous publication since its foundation in 1939. Its current Group Chief Executive & Editor-in-Chief is Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman....
) and television channels carried stories that claimed to detail U.S. diplomats' assessments of senior India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n generals as "vain, egotistical and genocidal", also saying "India's government is secretly allied with Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
fundamentalists", and that "Indian spies are covertly supporting Islamist militants in Pakistan's tribal belt and Balochistan
Balochistan
Balochistan or Baluchistan is a region which covers parts of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. It can also refer to one of several modern and historical territories within that region:...
." However, none of the cables revealed any such assessments. The claims were credited to an Islamabad
Islamabad
Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country. Located within the Islamabad Capital Territory , the population of the city has grown from 100,000 in 1951 to 1.7 million in 2011...
-based news service agency that has frequently run pro-Pakistan Army
Pakistan Army
The Pakistan Army is the branch of the Pakistani Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. The Pakistan Army came into existence after the Partition of India and the resulting independence of Pakistan in 1947. It is currently headed by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The Pakistan...
stories in the past.
Later, The News International admitted the story "was dubious and may have been planted", and The Express Tribune offered "profuse" apologies to readers. Urdu-language papers such as the Daily Jang, however, declined to retract the story.
Twitter subpoena
On 14 December 2010, a U.S. federal court subpoenaed Twitter for extensive information regarding WikiLeaks, but also put on a gagging order. The order was said to be part of an "ongoing criminal investigation", and required information regarding the Twitter accounts of WikiLeaks, Assange, Bradley Manning, Rop GonggrijpRop Gonggrijp
Robbert Valentijn Gonggrijp is a Dutch hacker and one of the founders of XS4ALL.- Biography :While growing up in Wormer in the Dutch Zaanstreek area, he became known as a teenage hacker and appeared as one of the main characters in Jan Jacobs's book "Kraken en Computers" which...
, Jacob Appelbaum
Jacob Appelbaum
Jacob Appelbaum is an independent computer security researcher and hacker. He is currently employed by the University of Washington, and is a core member of the Tor project. Appelbaum is known for representing Wikileaks at the 2010 Hope conference...
and Birgitta Jonsdottir
Birgitta Jónsdóttir
Birgitta Jónsdóttir is a member of parliament of Althing, the Icelandic parliament, formerly representing the Citizens' Movement, but now representing The Movement. Her district is the Reykjavík South Constituency. She was elected to the Icelandic parliament in April 2009 on behalf of a movement...
. According to Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
journalist Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is an American lawyer, columnist, blogger, and author. Greenwald worked as a constitutional and civil rights litigator before becoming a contributor to Salon.com, where he focuses on political and legal topics...
, the court "gave Twitter three days to respond and barred the company from notifying anyone, including the users, of the existence of the Order." Twitter requested that it be allowed to notify the users, giving them ten days to object. The court order was unsealed on 5 January 2011, and Jonsdottir decided to publicly fight the order.
Elected representatives of Iceland have declared such actions by the U.S. government "serious", "peculiar", "outlandish", and akin to heavy breathing on the telephone. The published subpoena text demands "you are to provide ... subscriber names, user names ... mailing addresses, residential addresses, business addresses ... telephone number[s] ... credit card or bank account number[s] ... billing records", "as well as 'destination email addresses and IP addresses". As of 10 January 2011, there were 636,759 followers of the WikiLeaks Twitter feed with destination email addresses and IP addresses.
Tunisian revolution
The cable leaks have been pointed to as a catalyst for the 2010–2011 Tunisian revolutionTunisian revolution
The Tunisian Revolution is an intensive campaign of civil resistance, including a series of street demonstrations taking place in Tunisia. The events began in December 2010 and led to the ousting of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011...
and government overthrow. Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy is a bimonthly American magazine founded in 1970 by Samuel P. Huntington and Warren Demian Manshel.Originally, the magazine was a quarterly...
magazine said, "We might also count Tunisia as the first time that WikiLeaks pushed people over the brink." Additionally, the New York Times said, "The protesters...found grist for the complaints in leaked cables from the United States Embassy in Tunisia, released by WikiLeaks, that detailed the self-dealing and excess of the president’s family."
See also
- Classified information in the United StatesClassified information in the United StatesThe United States government classification system is currently established under Executive Order 13526, the latest in a long series of executive orders on the topic. Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the...
- Foreign policy of the United States
- New York Times Co. v. United StatesNew York Times Co. v. United StatesNew York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 , was a United States Supreme Court per curiam decision. The ruling made it possible for the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers to publish the then-classified Pentagon Papers without risk of government censure.President Richard Nixon had...
(1971)
External links
- Secret US Embassy Cables by WikiLeaksWikileaksWikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
- The US embassy cables by The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- State's Secrets by The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
- WikiLeaks Diplomatic Cables by Der SpiegelDer SpiegelDer Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
- The Arrest of Julian Assange and the U.S. "War on WikiLeaks" – video report by Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
- All Cables on Google Fusion Tables
- Where is Wikileaks?, list of available Wikileaks mirrors
- cabledrum.net, cablegate search engine (full text, dates and attributes)
- Cablesearch.org, full-text search of released U.S. diplomatic cables
- Cablegatesearch, full-text search by topic
- Kabelsearch.org, secure interactive search
- Dazzlepod.com/cable, full-text search of released diplomatic cables
- "Wikileaked – Inside the State Department's Secret Cables". A journal run by Foreign Policy devoted to contents of WikiLeaks's U.S. diplomatic cables release (retrieved 10 December 2010)
- Savejulianassangefoundation.org, Save Julian Assange Foundation official website
- Youtube.com/wikileaksch, official channel of WikiLeaksWikileaksWikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
on YouTube - (German) WikiLeaks-Enthüllungen: Codename Projekt 8 – Der SpiegelDer SpiegelDer Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
s background on the strained negotiations between Wikileaks and the newspapers it chose to publish the cables