United States diplomatic cables WikiLeak

See also WikiLeaks, WikiLeaks: List of mirror sites, and Electronic attacks on WikiLeaks

This article has been split into separate sections to handle the large amount of information

• WikiLeaks: United States diplomatic cables leak
• Cablegate content: Americas, organisations and leaders
• Cablegate content: Europe
• Cablegate content: Middle East and North Africa
• Cablegate content: South Asia
• Cablegate content: East Asia and Oceania
• Cablegate data, and response

The United States diplomatic cables leak began on 28 November 2010 when the website WikiLeaks and five major newspapers published confidential documents of detailed correspondences between the U.S. State Department and its diplomatic missions around the world. The publication of the U.S. embassy cables is the third in a series of U.S. classified document "mega-leaks" distributed by WikiLeaks in 2010, following the Afghan War Diary in July, and the Iraq War Logs in October.

The first 291 of the 251,287 documents were published on 28 November, with simultaneous press coverage from El País (Spain), Le Monde (France), Der Spiegel (Germany), The Guardian (United Kingdom), and The New York Times (United States). Over 130,000 of the documents are unclassified; none are classified as "top secret" on the classification scale; some 100,000 are labeled "confidential"; and about 15,000 documents have the higher classification "secret". As of December 8, 2010 1060 individual cables had been released. WikiLeaks plans to release the entirety of the cables in phases over several months.

The cables describe international affairs from 274 embassies dated from 1966–2010. The content includes diplomatic analysis of world leaders, an assessment of host countries, and discussion about many international and domestic issues, from the Middle East to nuclear disarmament, from the War on Terror to attempts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

The sheer volume of the information and the number of commentators made for a truly diverse range of reactions to the leak. Western governments of course used the word "condemn" a lot, and filled their comments with Propaganda of the Wikipedia:Fear, uncertainty and doubt variety, claiming that making information public is a security risk. Even anti-secrecy advocates, working in the climate of fear post-Pentagon Attack, were at pains to address this false issue, questioning the necessity of government secrecy in a democracy that serves the interests of its people and depends on an informed electorate, rather than addressing the stupendous amount of misinformation as proof positive of the need for at least a temporary ban on secrecy until the government can be trusted. Additionally, the overscrupulous degree of some of the information covered up made it clear that unless the WikiLeaks leaks themselves considerably alter the status quo of the security and information-gathering sections of the military-government complex, given that it is increasingly unlikely that such a leak would happen again, the world population at large can look forward to any kind of misdeed, large or small, being perpetrated ad infinitum without any contemporary knowledge of it whatsoever. The leak also generated intense interest from the public, journalists, and media analysts. Some political leaders referred to Julian Assange, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, as a criminal, but also blamed the U.S. Department of Defense for security lapses that led to the leak. Supporters of Assange have referred to him as a heroic defender of free speech and freedom of the press. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that an "open and transparent government is something that the President believes is truly important. But the stealing of classified information and its dissemination is a crime".

History

Background, leak, and release

It was reported in June that the U.S. State Department and embassy personnel were concerned that Bradley Manning, who had been charged with the unauthorized download of classified material while he was stationed in Iraq, had leaked diplomatic cables. The report, written by Wired, was rejected as inaccurate by WikiLeaks: "Allegations in Wired that we have been sent 260,000 classified U.S. embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect". 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.

On 22 November, an announcement was made by WikiLeaks' 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 (UK) sent a DA-Notice to UK newspapers, which requested advance notice from newspapers regarding the expected publication. According to the Index on Censorship, "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".

The Guardian was then 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 Pakistani 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 in turn by writing back to the 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 of the documents, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton contacted officials in Afghanistan, Britain, the People's Republic of China, France, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and the United Arab Emirates about the impending release, while other diplomats apparently spoke with the leaders in India, Iraq, Turkey, Canada, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Pakistan, Denmark, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Colombia, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands.

Attacks on WikiLeaks

See WikiLeaks and Electronic attacks on WikiLeaks and Cablegate data, and response

About an hour prior to the planned release of the initial documents, WikiLeaks announced it was experiencing a massive distributed denial-of-service attack, but vowed to still leak the cables and documents via pre-agreed prominent media outlets El País, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and The New York Times.

Release

Release data at Cablegate data, and response

On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks began the release of the cables on its site, stating that "The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice". The first batch of leaks comprised 243 cables. Further cables were subsequently made available on the WikiLeaks website.

Wiktionary has a definition of Cablegate

Wikinews has information on this topic:

• "Wikileaks to release thousands of secret documents; 'international embarrassment' likely", 27 November 2010
• "Files will risk 'countless' lives, Obama administration warns Wikileaks", 28 November 2010
• "Wikileaks website attacked; millions of files to be released tonight", 28 November 2010
• "Wikileaks cable disclosure shows Arab fears of Iranian ambitions", 30 November 2010
• "Latest 'CableGate' disclosures hint at US diplomatic tactics in Spain and beyond", 1 December 2010
• "Interpol orders arrest of Wikileaks founder to face rape charges", 2 December 2010

External links

• Secret US Embassy Cables website by WikiLeaks.
• The US embassy cables by The Guardian.
• State's Secrets by The New York Times.
• WikiLeaks Diplomatic Cables by Der Spiegel
• The Arrest of Julian Assange and the U.S. "War on WikiLeaks" - video report by Democracy Now!