Tag Archives: Wikileaks

#cablegate: Amazon says WikiLeaks breached terms of service; web address host pulls out

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Following reports that Amazon’s servers had stopped hosting WikiLeaks’ site following its latest release of confidential diplomatic cables, it sought to clarify its position in a statement online.

On the Amazon Web Services site the statement says reports that a government inquiry had prompted it not to serve WikiLeaks any longer are inaccurate. It claimed instead that WikiLeaks had violated parts of its terms of service.

WikiLeaks has responded via its Twitter account.

The BBC also reported this morning that the WikiLeaks website had been shut down by EveryDNS.net, the company providing it with its .org web address.

EveryDNS.net said it had terminated services because WikiLeaks.org had come under massive cyber attacks.

But WikiLeaks has already reappeared using a Swiss web address.

#cablegate: Time magazine interview with Julian Assange

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Time magazine has published in full an interview it carried out with WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange on Tuesday (30 November) following this week’s release of secret and confidential diplomatic cables from US embassies around the world.

In the interview, which is carried out by Time editor Richard Stengel via Skype, Assange discussed the impact of the release so far.

I can see that the media scrutiny and the reaction from government are so tremendous that it actually eclipses our ability to understand it. And I think there is a new story appearing, a new, original story appearing about once every two minutes somewhere around the world.

He also talks about social media, adding that the wider online community has not been as involved in the “heavy analytical lifting” of the data as he expected, this role instead taken on by professional journalists.

The bulk of the heavy lifting – heavy analytical lifting – that is done with our materials is done by us, and is done by professional journalists we work with and by professional human rights activists. It is not done by the broader community. However, once the initial lifting is done, once a story becomes a story, becomes a news article, then we start to see community involvement, which digs deeper and provides more perspective. So the social networks tend to be, for us, an amplifier of what we are doing.

See the interview transcript in full here…

Economist.com: The Arab press’ reaction to WikiLeaks’ #cablegate release

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Great round-up of the reaction from the Arab press to WikiLeaks’ latest leak involving more than 250,000 cables sent by US embassies across the world, many relating to meetings between high-ranking American diplomats and Arab leaders.

The region’s press has been cautious in its coverage of the documents. Although many newspapers have reported the leak, most were hesitant in revealing details of claims made in the cables, preferring to discuss the themes of the leak in more general terms.

Full post on the Economist’s Newsbook blog at this link…

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

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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.

#cablegate: 7,500 cables tagged ‘PR and Correspondence’ could shed light on media relations

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According to WikiLeaks, there are more than 7,500 embassy cables due to be released as part of its latest classified documents leak that have the tag OPRC or “Public Relations and Correspondence”.

Only two with these tag have been published so far – one is a round-up of Turkish media reaction and the other a summary of media reaction to news issues in China, the US and Iran, both sent in 2009.

But it’ll be worth keeping an eye on future cables tagged OPRC for information about diplomats and country leaders’ media relations and communications.

Until the text of these cables is made public, we don’t know just what they contain and how relevant it might be to media outlets. But using the Guardian’s data store of the cables, it’s easy to find out how many cables have been sent by which embassies during the time period covered by the leak –

The US embassy in Ankara, Turkey is responsible for the largest number of cables tagged OPRC, 1,551, while the American Institute Taiwan in Taipei is behind 1,026 of them. Seventy-five embassies have sent 10 or fewer OPRC-tagged cables.

#cablegate: WikiLeaks’ embassy cables on today’s front pages

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Last night saw the beginning of the biggest leak of classified material in history, and most of this morning’s newspapers duly lead with the story. Here’s a look at the front pages of six of our national newspapers and the the New York Herald Tribune.

To read in closer the detail use the full screen toggle on the slideshow player.

#cablegate: The Guardian on the importance of the WikiLeaks embassy cables leak

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As WikiLeaks begins publication of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables sent by US embassies around the world, the Guardian, which is one of a group of media organisations publishing a selection (a few hundred) of the cables in partnership with the whistleblowing site, has produced the video below, explaining the significance of the leak:

Video: US embassy leaks: ‘The data deluge is coming …’ | World news | guardian.co.uk.

WikiLeaks announces new release of nearly three million documents

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WikiLeaks has indicated that it is preparing a new release of documents seven times the size of the Iraq war logs release, equal to around 2,800,000 documents.

In posts made on its Twitter account the whistleblower made appeals for donations to help support it as it prepares the new release, adding “the coming months will see a new world, where global history is redefined.”

Last month WikiLeaks released almost 400,000 military documents in relation to the war in Iraq to media outlets across the world, in what WikiLeaks claimed to be the biggest leak of military documents so far.

Swedish prosecutor seeks arrest of WikiLeaks founder in rape case

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According to reports this morning, the Swedish director of prosecutions Marianne Ny has called for the arrest of WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange. Reports AFP:

I request the District Court of Stockholm to detain Mr Assange in his absence, suspected of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.

The reason for my request is that we need to interrogate him. So far, we have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogations.

A warrant for Assange’s arrest was issued in October but was withdrawn hours later. He has claimed that the allegations are part of a smear campaign to discredit him following WikiLeaks’ publication of the Afghanistan war logs and Iraq war logs.

Full story on AFP at this link…

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange nominated for Time person of the year

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Founder of the whistleblowing website behind the Iraq war logs leak Julian Assange is in the running for Time magazine’s 2010 Person of the Year.

The WikiLeaks editor is part of a varied shortlist, which includes controversial broadcaster Glenn Beck, the Chilean Miners, Lady Gaga, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and “The Unemployed American”. The magazine will select a person, group, couple, idea, place etc that for better or worse has been most influential in 2010.

At time of writing, Assange was leading the polls in terms of total votes, but behind the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in terms of influence rating.