WikiLeaks Leaves Names of Diplomatic Sources in Cables

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

WASHINGTON — In a shift of tactics that has alarmed American officials, the antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks has published on the Web nearly 134,000 leaked diplomatic cables in recent days, more than six times the total disclosed publicly since the posting of the leaked State Department documents began last November.

A sampling of the documents showed that the newly published cables included the names of some people who had spoken confidentially to American 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 2010, The New York Times and several other news organizations have had access to more than 250,000 State Department cables originally obtained by WikiLeaks, citing them in news articles and publishing a relatively small number of cables deemed newsworthy. But The Times and other publications that had access to the documents removed the names of people judged vulnerable to retaliation.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/us/30wikileaks.html

[Bodhi BloodWave]

1. i'm curious, do the DU supporters of Wikileaks support this course of action by them?

that being releasing the info WITH the name of the sources still in there?

[jberryhill]

3. Clearly, foreign sources who speak to US diplomats confidentially....

...are merely agents of US imperialism and deserve what's coming to them.

Who do these people think they are, trusting the US like that.

[blackspade]

4. I'm curious, do the DU supporters of the US imperialist policies support...

the ongoing cover-up of war crimes and oppression?

[fascisthunter]

20. well done!

[caseymoz]

11. Why not ask if I support wind turbine accidents?

I don't believe this was a matter of Wikileaks policy gone wrong, was it? Why not ask if I "support" all the other accidental leaks of information by Google, or Facebook, or anyone of a dozen other companies?

This is terrible. Wikileaks can be criticized for gross incompetence, but I believe it still performed a necessary function prior to this.

As an excuse, it looks like confusion caused by a lot of turnover and splintering at the top.

[No Elephants]

14. +1

[No Elephants]

18. You are making a huge assumption, namely that publication of the names was deliberate.

Please see Reply 17.

[jberryhill]

2. "publishing a relatively small number of cables deemed newsworthy"

Deemed newsworthy by whom?

Our new lords of what we shall be allowed to know?

[No Elephants]

15. Since when are U.S. news organizations, such as the NYT "our

new lords of what we shall be allowed to know"?

From the OP:

"Since late 2010, The New York Times and several other news organizations have had access to more than 250,000 State Department cables originally obtained by WikiLeaks, citing them in news articles and publishing a relatively small number of cables deemed newsworthy. But The Times and other publications that had access to the documents removed the names of people judged vulnerable to retaliation.

WikiLeaks published some cables on its own Web site, but until the latest release, the group had also provided versions of the cables that had been edited to protect low-level diplomatic sources."


Before news organizations, government, in the form of King George III and his Colonial Governors, were "the lords of what we shall be allowed to know."

That was one the reasons we went to war and also one of the reasons for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Since then, we've had such things published as the Pentagon Papers and the leaks about Watergate.

As I believe the above quote shows, there is little reason to assume this was anything but an accident.

Besides, what is the alternative? Pravda?

[McCamy Taylor]

5. Depends upon who the sources are. Need more info to make a decision.

If the sources are all corporate lackeys trying to influence US policy then print away. If they are spies for the US....OOPS! A journalist in an authoritarian country can still be working for his authoritarian government. Many dictators support certain "activists" like the right wing paramilitaries in Colombia.

If any of these folks are arrested because their names appeared in WikiLeaks I expect the corporate media will be all over it. So, in the next few days if I don't read in the WaPost or NYT that this has happened then I will assume that no one was really outed, and this is just the state department getting mad again.

[NICO9000]

6. I saw a great bumper sticker last week

"Jesus loves WikiLeaks!"

[starroute]

7. The New York Times is hardly a neutral observer

Recall what Glenn Greenwald wrote last fall about the Times being the center of a smear campaign against Julian Assange: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/10/24/assange

I think I'll wait until I see an account of the current situation from an unbiased source before I arrive at any judgment.

[2banon]

8. Hear, Here! n/t

[cprise]

9. Indeed. Read the posting and comments at this link:

http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/08/29/1835222/Theres-Been-a-Leak-At-WikiLeaks

NYT still seems to be in full-tilt smear mode.

Un-rec'd

[joshcryer]

12. Thanks for that.

[coalition_unwilling]

13. Bingo! Recall that the NY Times employed Judith Miller and I'd

say the NY Times has no credibility left as a journalistic vehicle.

That's zero credibility, as in NONE. The blood of 1,000,000+ dead Iraqis drips on the floors of the international news desks of the NY Times. Fuck the NY Times.

[No Elephants]

16. Is there really any such thing as an unbiased source?

I don't think so. There is, however, good journalism and bad journalism.

[bemildred]

10. Yawn. nt

[No Elephants]

17. Was this really "a shift of tactics" or an accident--and how would the NYT know?

The NYT does not even claim that an anonymous source said inclusion of the names was deliberate. Also, there is innuendo in the article to the effect that Assange approved release of the names.

If deliberate, this is reprehensible. If it is an Amateur Hour accident, it is very unfortunate. Right now, I don't think we kmow; and we may never know.

[GliderGuider]

19. The story is anti-Assange spin. The fact do not support the NYT narrative.

There's Been a Leak at WikiLeaks

This week, WikiLeaks editor and self-proclaimed freedom of information crusader Julian Assange is getting a lesson in irony: there has been a leak at WikiLeaks. German paper Der Freitag claims it has uncovered a batch of online unredacted diplomatic cables that came from WikiLeaks.

Editor Steffen Kraft said he found a "password protected csv file" that contained a 1.73GB cache of diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks. Kraft said the file's password was easy to find.

WikiLeaks usually redacts documents before it releases them, meaning it removes the names of informants or vulnerable sources. Many of the of the documents uncovered by Der Freitag had been published by WikiLeaks in the past, but they're not official WikiLeaks files and they have not been edited for sensitive information in the usual way. Its pages contained "named or otherwise identifiable 'informers' and 'suspected intelligence agents' from Israel, Jordan, Iran, and Afghanistan," Der Freitag said.

In light of the sensitive nature of the information, Der Freitag has not published these documents, nor provided proof of their existence, but Der Spiegel, another German paper, has chimed in to confirm that they're real.

The NYT is still carrying Cheney's water.

On edit: unrec

[fascisthunter]

21. indeed

[bemildred]

22. More to the point, it is the US Government, if anyone, which had/has a duty to protect.

And failed. Wikileaks has no such obligation or duty to close the barn door for the spooks after they let their horse escape.