Yahoo News: WikiLeaks embassy cables release prompts new ‘whistleblower bill’

The leak of the US embassy cables by WikiLeaks is prompting new legislation in the US that would give employees in sensitive government jobs a way to report corruption or mismanagement.

The “whistleblower bill” will discourage leaks of classified information say its supporters. The bill is likely to pass through the approval process quickly, Yahoo News reports

Following WikiLeaks’ pulibcation of the Afghanistan war logs in July US senators Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein began hastily drafting an amendment to a current piece of legislation designed to protect journalists’ sources to ensure that WikiLeaks could not be included. The amendement declared that the bill would “only extend only to traditional news-gathering activities and not to websites that serve as a conduit for the mass dissemination of secret documents”.

Full story on Yahoo News at this link.

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