02 December 2010

WikiLeaks documents were vetted and redacted prior to release

I remember being puzzled on hearing U.S. officials warning about the content of the upcoming "Cablegate" documents.  How did the U.S. know in advance what the contents of the leaked material would reveal?  I learn now that the documents were sent to U.S. officials for review prior to making the contents public.  Here are excerpts from a report posted at McClatchy Newspapers:
Before Sunday's release, news organizations given access to the documents and WikiLeaks took the greatest care to date to ensure no one would be put in danger. In statements accompanying stories about the documents, several newspapers said they voluntarily withheld information and that they cooperated with the State Department and the Obama administration to ensure nothing released could endanger lives or national security....

The newspapers also communicated U.S. government concerns to WikiLeaks to ensure sensitive data didn't appear on the organization's website.  "After its own redactions, The (New York) Times sent Obama administration officials the cables it planned to post and invited them to challenge publication of any information that, in the official view, would harm the national interest..."

"Together, the five newspapers have carefully edited the raw text used to remove all names and indices whose disclosure could pose risks to individuals," Le Monde said...

When the first batch of [Afghanistan-related] documents was released this summer, WikiLeaks unapologetically released the names of Afghan informants, which U.S. officials charged could lead to their deaths. In the second batch, released in October, which focused on the Iraq war, WikiLeaks withheld names but didn't work with the U.S. government to determine what could endanger U.S. national security.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell has said previously that there was no evidence that anyone had been killed because of the leaks. Sunday, another Pentagon official told McClatchy that the military still has no evidence that the leaks have led to any deaths. The official didn't want to be named because of the issue's sensitivity...

It wasn't immediately clear how Sunday's release would endanger secret U.S. programs, though it wasn't difficult to conclude that some of the releases could endanger local officials' political futures.

1 comment:

  1. If only the hundreds upon hundreds of US millions that have disappeared in Iraq got this much attention and scrutiny (not to mention the hundreds of thousands of disappeared Iraqis).

    ReplyDelete

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