WikiLeaks began publishing the United States diplomatic cables leak on 28 November 2010. The documents included classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by its consulates, embassies, and diplomatic missions around the world. The cables were dated between December 1966 and February 2010, and contained assessments of host countries and their officials. The publication of the cables produced varying responses around the world.
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, in a letter to president Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, mentioned, "while we hold varying opinions of Wikileaks' methods and decisions, we all believe that in publishing diplomatic cables Wikileaks is engaging in journalistic activity protected by the First Amendment". It also warned that overreaction to publication of leaked material in the press will be more damaging to American democracy than the leaks themselves.[64]
Emily Berman, a lawyer from the Liberty and National Security Project at NYU Law School told David Weigel of Slate why calls for WikiLeaks to be labeled a Foreign Terrorist Organisation are unrealistic: "A definition of material support which includes that would be so broad that it could include scholarly research and op-eds ... If the State Department designated WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization, a law professor working on these issues would immediately be at risk of criminal prosecution".[65]
Noam Chomsky, an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, "Perhaps the most dramatic revelation ... is the bitter hatred of democracy that is revealed both by the U.S. Government – Hillary Clinton, others – and also by the diplomatic service". Chomsky also described Representative King's call for WikiLeaks to be named a "foreign terrorist organization" as "outlandish."[66]
Upon the release of the classified materials, the CIA launched a task force to assess its impact on diplomatic relations of United States. Officially, the panel was called the WikiLeaks Task Force. However, The Washington Post reported that at CIA headquarters it is identified by its "all-too-apt acronym" W.T.F. which refers to the popular internet slang, "What the fuck?".[67] The main focus of the task force was the immediate impact of the most recently released files. It examined whether the agency's ability to recruit informants could be damaged by declining confidence in the US government's ability to keep secrets.[68]
Scott Gilmore wrote in The Globe and Mail that based on his experience as a Canadian diplomat in Indonesia the leak "is not a real victory for a more open world. It will lead to a more closed world, where repressive governments will be more free to commit atrocities against their own people and the people who try to stop them will have even less information to help prevent this".[69]
Jonathan Powell, a British diplomat for sixteen years and Tony Blair's Chief of Staff, wrote: "It is very difficult to conduct diplomacy effectively when your confidential deliberations are made public in this way. Mutual trust is the basis of such relations and once that trust is breached, candid conversations are less likely. It is like having a conversation in the pub with your best mate about problems with your girlfriend and then finding the content, possibly with a bit of spin added, posted on the internet. You won't be having that conversation again any time soon."[70]
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the leak as an attack not just on the U.S. but on all governments arguing that the leak was
not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community, the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity.[71]
Clinton's credibility was questioned by several mainstream American and British periodicals, as some journalists, as well as Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez,[72] called for Clinton to resign or asked whether she will resign, amid allegations that Clinton broke international law or other laws by allegedly trying to steal credit card numbers, passwords, and biometric data from the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon and other leaders, and as future cable leaks or the current ones may bring investigations against Clinton.[63] [73] [74] [75]
Clinton condemned the WikiLeaks release of once-classified diplomatic documents as nothing less than an attack on the United States and its allies. 'This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests', Clinton said, 'it is an attack on the international community: the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity'. Clinton added: 'It puts people's lives in danger, threatens our national security and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems.'
The publishing of a cable from the U.S. State Department sent in February 2009, titled the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, listed foreign installations and infrastructure considered critical to U.S. interests; before its release, WikiLeaks removed the names and locations. The list included key facilities that if attacked could disrupt the global supply chain and global communications, as well as goods and services important to the U.S. and its economy.[76] U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the disclosure of this list "gives a group like al-Qaeda a targeting list."[77] In response, WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said with reference to the cable: "This further undermines claims made by the US Government that its embassy officials do not play an intelligence-gathering role. In terms of security issues, while this cable details the strategic importance of assets across the world, it does not give any information as to their exact locations, security measures, vulnerabilities or any similar factors, though it does reveal the US asked its diplomats to report back on these matters."[78]
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Assange "a high-tech terrorist".[79]
U.S. Representative Peter T. King, the ranking member of the United States House Committee on Homeland Security said that the release "posed a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States"[80] and that it "manifests Mr. Assange's purposeful intent to damage not only our national interests in fighting the war on terror, but also undermines the very safety of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. What I'm concerned about is the analysis of these documents" stating that "there are two things that are most damaging: 1. Yemen and Pakistan and the sensitive negotiations on nuclear proliferation underway. And, second, Saudi Arabia siding with the U.S. against Iran". He called for Assange to be prosecuted for espionage,[81] and asked the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to "determine whether Wikileaks could be designated a foreign terrorist organization", and that "by doing so we can seize their assets".[82] [83] [84] New York attorney in international law and human rights Scott Horton responded by saying:
In fact, the term 'foreign terrorist organization' (FTO) is established in section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which empowers the Secretary of State (not the attorney general) to apply that label to foreign organizations, with immediate and severe consequences for those so labeled and those who communicate or deal with them in any way. The Secretary of State does not have carte blanche in this process. To qualify as an FTO, an organization must have been engaged in 'terrorist activity' or 'terrorism,' which are defined to include multiple acts of violence threatening U.S. persons or the national security of the United States. An organization cannot plausibly qualify as a 'terrorist organization' simply by publishing documents that embarrass the government or particular politicians.[85]
U.S. Congressman Ron Paul (R) from Texas said "in a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble."[86] He responded to the leaks by asking the American people to consider a list of nine questions. Under Number 5 and 6 he asked
Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers? Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?
Regarding the accusations of treason, he called the desire to charge Assange, an Australian citizen, for treason "wild", but also asked the general question:
Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?[87]
British Prime Minister David Cameron said the list was damaging to the national security of both his country and the United States, "and elsewhere".[88]
Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee Malcolm Rifkind criticized the leaks on the grounds that the leaking of genuine secrets undermines the trust between diplomats required for diplomatic negotiations.[89]
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard branded WikiLeaks as "grossly irresponsible", arguing that a submarine cable link to Australia from the United States that included the details of critical infrastructure "would not be on Wikileaks if an illegal act hadn't taken place."[90]
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, expressed his "solidarity" with Assange following Assange's 2010 arrest in the United Kingdom.[91] [92] He criticised the arrest of Julian Assange as "an attack on freedom of expression".[93]
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Michael Mullen, said, "Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is, they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family." Assange said that there was no evidence of harm being caused by the release and that Wikileaks treated the revelation of names seriously and had asked the US government, through Wikileaks' publishing partner The New York Times, for help in identifying names in the documents prior to publication. Assange said "...it's really quite fantastic that Gates and Mullen ... who have ordered assassinations every day, are trying to bring people on board to look at a speculative understanding of whether we might have blood on our hands. These two men arguably are wading in the blood from those wars."[94]
Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said that Assange "is serving our democracy and serving our rule of law precisely by challenging the secrecy regulations" and that the leak's ramifications for the U.S.'s national security "is extremely low."[95]
Phyllis Bennis, a senior analyst with the think-tank[96] [97] [98] [99] [100] Institute for Policy Studies and founder of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli occupation,[101] told Paul Jay of The Real News Network that Clinton's orders of spying on U.N. leaders showed that George W. Bush's style is still around.[102]
Daniel Flitton, diplomatic editor for The Age, wrote that "Government embarrassment over this disclosure should not be confused with damage to the good of the nation. (sic) The full detail of the leak remains to be explored, but the public has gained a rare insight into the workings of government".[103]
United Nations Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression Frank LaRue said Assange or other WikiLeaks staff should not face legal action for any information they disseminated, noting that, "if there is a responsibility by leaking information it is of, exclusively of the person that made the leak and not of the media that publish it. And this is the way that transparency works and that corruption has been confronted in many cases."[104] Similarly, writing in the American Spectator, Alex Massie defended Wikileaks on the grounds that it is, like any other major media outlet, a news publisher.[105]
Australian journalist John Pilger said the leaks by WikiLeaks and others were part of a larger struggle against "powerful institutions bent on curtailing our knowledge of and influence over policies and structures that impact our lives: they are information heroes, not information villains."[106]
Henry Porter, writing in The Observer on 11 December, established a parallel with events in 1771. At that time British law prohibited reporting of U.K. parliamentary debates and speeches because those in power argued that the information was too sensitive and would be disruptive if published. John Wilkes and others illegally published debates, with the eventual support of the London mob, shopkeepers and members of the gentry. Porter said: "From that moment, the freedom of the press was born ... and the kingdom did not fall."
Glenn Greenwald wrote in Salon, "The WikiLeaks disclosure has revealed not only numerous government secrets, but also the driving mentality of major factions in our political and media class. Simply put, there are few countries in the world with citizenries and especially media outlets more devoted to serving, protecting and venerating government authorities than the U.S. Indeed, I don't quite recall any entity producing as much bipartisan contempt across the American political spectrum as WikiLeaks has: as usual, for authoritarian minds, those who expose secrets are far more hated than those in power who commit heinous acts using secrecy as their principal weapon".[107] Greenwald criticized one prominent New York Times article on Assange by John F. Burns as a "sleazy hit piece".[108] Burns defended his article, saying it was an "absolutely standard journalistic endeavour".[109] [110] Marc Lynch wrote in Foreign Policy that "my initial skepticism about the significance of this document leak, fueled by the lack of interesting revelations in The New York Times and The Guardian reports, is changing as I see the first batch of cables posted on WikiLeaks itself."[111]
John Nichols of The Nation wrote that "Reasonable people may debate the way in which WikiLeaks obtains and releases classified documents. But for [White House Press Secretary Robert] Gibbs to try and claim that transparency and openness [has put at risk the cause of human rights] is intellectually and practically dishonest".[112]
Republican 2008 U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin denounced the Obama administration's approach, calling Assange "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands" and asking "Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?" She said, "What if any diplomatic pressure was brought to bear on NATO, EU, and other allies to disrupt WikiLeaks' technical infrastructure? Did we use all the cyber tools at our disposal to permanently dismantle WikiLeaks? Were individuals working for WikiLeaks on these document leaks investigated? Shouldn't they at least have had their financial assets frozen just as we do to individuals who provide material support for terrorist organizations?" On Twitter she posted, "Inexplicable: I recently won in court to stop my book 'America by Heart' from being leaked", she wrote, "but US Govt can't stop Wikileaks' treasonous act?"[113] [114] Republican Rick Santorum agreed with Palin, saying "We haven't gone after this guy, we haven't tried to prosecute him, we haven't gotten our allies to go out and lock this guy up and bring him up on terrorism charges."[115] Republican 2008 presidential primary contender Mike Huckabee called for the person who leaked the documents to be executed for treason.[116]
Former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich said, "Information terrorism, which leads to people getting killed, is terrorism, and Julian Assange is engaged in terrorism. He should be treated as an enemy combatant."[117]
Tom Flanagan, a former advisor to the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, stated on 30 November 2010: "I think Assange should be assassinated. President Obama should put a contract out on Assange's life or send out a drone to kill him. I would not be unhappy if Assange 'disappeared.[118] The next day Flanagan attempted to retract his statements by saying "I never seriously intended to advocate or propose the assassination of Mr. Assange. But I do think that what he's doing is very malicious and harmful to diplomacy and endangering people's lives, and I think it should be stopped."[119] A complaint was filed against Flanagan, stating that he "counselled and/or incited the assassination of Julian Assange contrary to the Criminal Code of Canada", in his remarks on the CBC program Power & Politics.[120]
Scott Shane of The New York Times said "perhaps if we had had more information on these secret internal deliberations of governments prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, we would have had a better understanding of the quality of the evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Secrecy is not always in the interests of governments or people".[121]
Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, expressed cynicism about Assange's (and Wikileaks) descriptions of the importance of the release, as well as the ensuing media frenzy over the release. He blasted the Italian minister's equivalency of the leak to a diplomatic "9/11" and stated that Assange did not know just how much cynicism about the U.S. government is held by American citizens; thus, in Stewart's view, Assange should "stop with the drama".[122]
Nancy Youssef of The McClatchy Company of newspapers wrote that "American officials in recent days have warned repeatedly that the release of documents by WikiLeaks could put people's lives in danger, but, despite similar warnings before the previous two releases of classified U.S. intelligence reports by the website, U.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date that the documents led to anyone's death".[123]
Bob Beckel, a Fox News Business commentator, said "This guy's a traitor, he's treasonous, and he has broken every law of the United States. And I'm not for the death penalty, so ... there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch."[124]
Daniel Yates, a former British military intelligence officer, wrote "Assange has seriously endangered the lives of Afghan civilians ... The logs contain detailed personal information regarding Afghan civilians who have approached NATO soldiers with information. It is inevitable that the Taliban will now seek violent retribution on those who have co-operated with NATO. Their families and tribes will also be in danger." Responding to the criticism, Assange said in August 2010 that 15,000 documents are still being reviewed "line by line", and that the names of "innocent parties who are under reasonable threat" will be removed.[125] This was in response to a letter from a White House spokesman. Assange replied to the request through Eric Schmitt, a New York Times editor. This reply was Assange's offer to the White House to vet any harmful documents; Schmitt responded that "I certainly didn't consider this a serious and realistic offer to the White House to vet any of the documents before they were to be posted, and I think it's ridiculous that Assange is portraying it that way now."[126]
Jack Goldsmith, a former OLC official in the Bush administration, has written that Assange is "being unduly vilified" and though he does not like the leaks, "it is not obvious what law he has violated". Furthermore, "[i]t is also important to remember ... that the responsibility for these disclosures lies firmly with the institution empowered to keep them secret: the Executive branch." He does not understand "why so much ire is directed at Assange and so little at The New York Times", as in his opinion the disclosure by that organisation of the secret surveillance program in 2005 - 2006 was arguably "more harmful to national security than the wikileaks disclosures". He also points out the hypocrisy of the government in attacking WikiLeaks when "its top [Obama administration] officials openly violat[ed] classification rules and opportunistically reveal[ed] without authorization top secret information" when assisting Bob Woodward with his book Obama's Wars.[127]
A 29 November 2010 article in The Economist defended the leaks stating that "if secrecy is necessary for national security and effective diplomacy, it is also inevitable that the prerogative of secrecy will be used to hide the misdeeds of the permanent state and its privileged agents."[128]
In an open letter to prime minister Julia Gillard, some of Australia's main media personnel said the U.S. and Australian governments' reaction to the release of diplomatic correspondence by the WikiLeaks website is "deeply troubling" and warned that they will "strongly resist any attempts to make the publication of these or similar documents illegal".[129] [130]
A 30 November 2010 Ottawa Sun editorial criticised the leak: "we see no for-the-good-of-the-people journalistic justification for WikiLeaks reckless sabotage of U.S. international relations".[131]
Javier Moreno, editor-in-chief of El País, said that the release of the documents does not put lives at risk and that the attacks on such a release of information to the general public amount to the same reaction seen in other leaks, such as the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Moreno said that the only thing at risk is the career of officials and diplomats within the compromised governments.[132]
Henry Porter, writing in The Observer, established a parallel with events in 1771. At that time British law prohibited reporting of parliamentary debates and speeches because those in power argued that the information was too sensitive and would be disruptive if published. John Wilkes and others illegally published debates, with the eventual support of the London mob, shopkeepers and members of the gentry. Porter says that "From that moment, the freedom of the press was born ... and the kingdom did not fall."[133]
On 30 November 2010, Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland, a national security analyst and host for Fox News, called Assange a terrorist, Wikileaks "a terrorist organization" and has called for Chelsea Manning's execution if she is found guilty of making the leaks.[134]
A 2 December 2010 editorial by Jeffrey T. Kuhner in The Washington Times said Assange should be treated "the same way as other high-value terrorist targets" and be assassinated.[135]
The Sydney Morning Herald ran an 8 December 2010 editorial by Bryce Lowry describing Assange as "the Ned Kelly of the digital age" comparing him to a bushranger who defied colonial authorities in Australia in the nineteenth century.[136]
On 10 December 2010, Beijing Daily, a publication of the Beijing, China, city government, suggested in an editorial that this year's Nobel Peace Prize not be given to the imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo but to Assange.[137]
Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time, defended the leaks, on 13 December 2010, arguing that although the release of classified materials harms American security, he noted the right of news organizations to publish those documents under the First Amendment.[138] In that same edition of Time, Fareed Zakaria argued that cables leak show the competency, not duplicity, of American diplomacy as it shows "Washington pursuing privately pretty much the policies it has articulated publicly."[139]
Some media outlets have criticized the subsequent attacks on WikiLeaks after the cables leak. "Not much truck with freedom of information, then, in the land of the free", Seumas Milne, a left-wing[140] [141] [142] [143] [144] [145] associate editor of The Guardian.[146] Financial Times Deutschland said that "the already damaged reputation of the United States will only be further tattered with Assange's new martyr status".[147]
Amnesty International responded to the release of a 2006 memorandum discussing American misuse of Shannon Airport by asking the Irish Government to tighten its legislation to counter use of Irish airspace by the Americans. Colm O'Gorman, the organisation's executive director in Ireland, observed that concerns expressed by Irish citizens over the misuse of the airport by the Americans was "a problem to be managed rather than something to be taken seriously".[148]
Reporters Without Borders condemned the subsequent blocking and the massive distributed denial-of-service attack on the WikiLeaks website. It also raised concerns over the extreme comments made by American authorities concerning WikiLeaks and Assange. It issued a statement sayingLater, RWB decided to host a mirror site of WikiLeaks on the address wikileaks.rsf.org[149] as a "gesture of support for WikiLeaks' right to publish information without being obstructed".[150]
The American Civil Liberties Union issued a statement, beginning "The Wikileaks phenomenon — the existence of an organization devoted to obtaining and publicly releasing large troves of information the U.S. government would prefer to keep secret — illustrates just how broken our secrecy classification system is. While the Obama administration has made some modest improvements to the rules governing classification of government information, both it and the Bush administration have overclassified and kept secret information that should be subject to public scrutiny and debate. As a result, the American public has had to depend on leaks to the news media and whistleblowers to know what the government is up to".[151]
Anonymous, the online community of activists, announced its support for Wikileaks by "declaring war" against enemies of Assange, calling on supporters to attack sites and companies that do not support WikiLeaks and to spread the leaked cables online.[152] [153] As of 8 December 2010, PostFinance.ch, a bank which terminated Assange's bank account, the office of the Swedish prosecutor, MasterCard and Visa have all been attacked and brought down by DDoS attacks. Anonymous has also declared PayPal a target.
The WikiLeaks controversy has been satirized in American popular culture.[167] [168] An example is the Saturday Night Live skit "WikiLeaks TMZ", in which Julian Assange (Bill Hader) presents ambushes of political leaders to expose their corruption: Libya's Muammar Qaddafi (Fred Armisen) is caught with his Ukrainian nurse; Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai (Robert De Niro) is caught pocketing money; and Hillary Clinton is found not wearing any underclothes.
