WikiLeaks prepares to release unredacted US cables

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

WikiLeaks is conducting an online poll of its Twitter followers to decide whether the whistleblowing site should publish in full its unredacted cache of US diplomatic cables.

The site last week released more than 120,000 of its cache of diplomatic cables, with almost no redactions to protect the identity of informants and other individuals. The huge scale of the release, compared with 20,000 cables disclosed in the past nine months, prompted fierce criticism from the Australian government and former US state department spokesman PJ Crowley.

WikiLeaks appeared likely to use the Twitter responses, which it said favoured disclosure at a ratio of 100 to one, to pave the way for imminent disclosure of the remaining material from its cable archive.

The majority of cables published in the past week by WikiLeaks were unclassified but the site released the full archives, including confidential and secret cables, from Sweden and Australia. The Australian cables, which unlike previous releases were not apparently redacted, included a document identifying 23 Australians alleged to have links with al-Qaida, prompting an angry response from Robert McClelland, Australia's attorney general.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/01/wikileaks-prepares-unredacted-us-cables

[ohbill]

1. It has, supposedly, been released already.

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6644050/

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. It's all over the net that they have already been released.

[Xithras]

14. The encrypted file has been on the Internet for the better part of the past year.

Modern encryption being what it is, the file was useless without a password. It was Assange's "insurance" against being railroaded, and that insurance was useless if it was leaked prematurely.

The Guardian, and not Assange, published the password to the file and made its contents public.

[DeSwiss]

3. No. More. Lies. - K&R n/t

[No Elephants]

4. Didn't I just read on another thread that wikileaks is suing the Guardian for leaking unredacted

wikileaks material?

[Luminous Animal]

5. No. Wikileaks is suing for breach of contract.

[joeglow3]

6. Yes, And sadly, some people seem to think the double standard is okay

The reality is that this is NO different than Cheney outing Plame.

[Luminous Animal]

7. Blame the Guardian for publishing the password.

Wikileaks would not have taken this step if the password had remained secure.

[joeglow3]

8. Perpetuating the story is still not the correct thing to do.

[JackRiddler]

10. What do you mean? We should all stay real quiet, and maybe time will magically reverse itself?

[Luminous Animal]

12. They released it because they knew that government agents around the world

already had the password and were accessing the cables.

If governments can see the unredacted cables, why can't we?

[Bragi]

13. One big difference

Wikileaks outs war crimes. Cheney is a war criminal.

[JackRiddler]

9. Incorrect & Untruthful: A Guardian reporter published the password for accessing the cable file.

The files are now out as a direct result of what David Leigh did. This is irretrievable. Now that it has happened of course Wikileaks is also publishing them on its own site.

The Guardian is now trying to shift the blame to WL, as though their mistake (or idiocy) is Assange's fault.

SNIP

...the password was made available, by none other than The Guardian’s David Leigh, in his book released in February this year co-written with Luke Harding, WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy. An extract from the book, which was published after the encrypted material had gone online:

Eventually, Assange capitulated. Late at night, after a two-hour debate, he started the process on one of his little netbooks that would enable Leigh to download the entire tranche of cables. The Guardian journalist had to set up the PGP encryption system on his laptop at home across the other side of London. Then he could feed in a password. Assange wrote down on a scrap of paper:

CollectionOfHistorySince_1966_ToThe_PresentDay#

“That’s the password,” he said. “But you have to add one extra word when you type it in. You have to put in the word ‘Diplomatic’ before the word ‘History’ Can you remember that?” “I can remember that.” Leigh set off home, and successfully installed the PGP software.

Leigh thus, as part of his effort to cash in on his once-intense but by then-soured relationship with Assange, had revealed the key to decrypting the entire set of cables that had been available online.

SNIP

[Poll_Blind]

11. Guardian published the full password in a book after their copy of the archive wound up online.

Page 148 of the book WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War On Secrecy, by David Leigh and Luke Harding.

PB