CIA director John Brennan makes a point during a news conference at CIA Headquarters in Virginia, December 11, 2014. Wikileaks posted material Wednesday that appears to be from Brennans personal emails.Photo by Larry Downing/Reuters

WASHINGTON The Wikileaks organization has posted material from what appears to be CIA director John Brennans personal email account, including a draft security clearance application containing personal information.

The material presumably was taken in a compromise of Brennans email account by a hacker who says he is a high school student protesting American foreign policy. The hacker claims he posed as a Verizon employee and tricked another employee into revealing Brennans personal information.

It was not immediately clear whether any national security information was compromised in the release of the clearance application, which includes his wifes Social Security number and the names of people Brennan worked with over a long prior career at the CIA. The application predated his job as White House counter terrorism adviser.

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Wikileaks publishes CIA director John Brennan emails

WASHINGTON

Information from the private email account of CIA Director John Brennan is being made public, just days after hackers bragged they had broken in.

WikiLeaks on Thursday posted several documents from the account, including what appear to be drafts of papers about the challenges facing the U.S. intelligence community and recommendations for how the U.S. should deal with Iran.

The anti-secrecy website also posted a draft of Brennans security clearance application, which contained personal information, such as a Social Security number.

WikiLeaks defended its actions, saying Brennan used the account occasionally for several intelligence-related projects, adding that it planned to release additional documents in the coming days.

CIA counters

A CIA spokesman rejected the websites claims.

There is no indication that any of the documents released thus far are classified, the spokesman said, describing them instead as documents that a private citizen with national security interests and expertise would be expected to possess.

The spokesman also called the hacking a crime.

The Brennan family is the victim, the spokesman said. The private electronic holdings of the Brennan family were plundered with malicious intent and are now being distributed across the Web.

The documents posted on WikiLeaks appear to have come from a high school student who told the New York Post earlier this week that he'd hijacked the CIA directors personal email account to protest American foreign policy.

The documents posted by WikiLeaks on Thursday all date to a time before Brennan joined the administration of President Barack Obama.

Draft paper

One paper from 2007, titled The Conundrum of Iran, warns that Tehrans ongoing use of terrorism is particularly alarming and insidious, but also bemoans the gratuitous labeling of Iran as part of an 'axis of evil' by President Bush following the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S.

The draft paper recommends the next president of the United States tone down the rhetoric.

Irans importance to U.S. strategic interests and to overall stability in the region necessitates the establishment of direct and senior-level dialogue, Brennan wrote, suggesting Washington hold out meaningful carrots as well as sticks.

The paper also suggested naming former Secretary of State Colin Powell as a special U.S. envoy to Iran to facilitate the process.

WikiLeaks posted a 2008 letter from former U.S. Senator Kit Bond to other senators about Bonds own proposal to curb CIA interrogation techniques. It also posted what appeared to be Bond's draft legislation.

Theres unlikely to be any real geopolitical fallout, said Patrick Skinner, a former U.S. intelligence official who is now director of special projects at the Soufan Group, a private intelligence firm.

Other intelligence agencies would look for information to either blackmail or socially engineer a pitch, but the CIA director isn't a realistic target for those services, Skinner said. This is much more narrow and personal.

Vulnerabilities exposed

Government officials and private experts say the incident also demonstrates the vulnerabilities of an environment in which a need for fast and easy communication has outpaced the ability of agencies and companies to safeguard information.

It is one of the most critical threats right now, said Saryu Nayyar, CEO of Gurucul, a company that provides identity-based threat detection.

Its happening many times a day at any organization, she said. Hackers get into an environment, behave like insiders and exfiltrate critical intellectual property and confidential data.

Law enforcement officials say they are looking into the hijacking of the CIA directors private email account.

The FBI is investigating this matter jointly with the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI said in a statement. Because this is an ongoing investigation, we are restricted from commenting further.

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WikiLeaks Posts CIA Directors Personal Info

CIA Director John Brennan (center) last month at a hearing on "World Wide Cyber Threats" at the House Intelligence Committee in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The e-mails include Brennan'sSF86, a form that he had to fill out to get his current position and security clearance. The form, from 2008, "reveals a quite comprehensive social graph of the current Director of the CIA with a lot of additional non-governmental and professional/military career details," according to WikiLeaks' description of the document.

The published materials also include Brennan'srecommendations to the US President about how to manage affairs related to Iran anda letter from Senator Kit Bond, vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that details how to "make future interrogation methods 'compliant' and 'legal,'" WikiLeaks states.

CWAalso claimed to have breached an e-mail account belonging to Jeh Johnson, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Officials told The New York Times that Johnson didn't actively use that account, which may have come as part of a Comcast cable package.

The Times further reported that there isnothing "classified or hip" in Brennan's AOL account, and it dates to the days when he was CIA station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.However, if accurate, the material is at least sensitive, given that the SF86 formdiscloses contact information for Brennan'srelatives and professionalconnections.

The files published earlier by the hackerinclude a spreadsheet with contact information for high-levelgovernment employees, which appears to be some kind of access list for an event.CWAsaid he accessedBrennan's account by tricking Verizon employees into giving out his personal information.

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WikiLeaks publishes e-mail from CIA directors hacked AOL ...

Today, 21 October 2015 and over the coming days WikiLeaks is releasing documents from one of CIA chief John Brennan's non-government email accounts. Brennan used the account occasionally for several intelligence related projects.

John Brennan became the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in March 2013, replacing General David Petraeus who was forced to step down after becoming embroiled in a classified information mishandling scandal. Brennan was made Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism on the commencement of the Obama presidency in 2009--a position he held until taking up his role as CIA chief.

According to the CIA Brennan previously worked for the agency for a 25 year stretch, from 1980 to 2005.

Brennan went private in 2005-2008, founding an intelligence and analysis firm The Analysis Corp (TAC). In 2008 Brennan became a donor to Obama. The same year TAC, led by Brennan, became a security advisor to the Obama campaign and later that year to the Obama-Biden Transition Project. It is during this period many of the Obama administration's key strategic policies to China, Iran and "Af-Pak" were formulated. When Obama and Biden entered into power, Brennan was lifted up on high, resulting in his subsequent high-level national security appointments.

If you have similar official documents that have not been published yet, submit them to WikiLeaks.

Recommendations for a USG strategy in the Afghanistan-Pakistan (AF-PK) region. (7. November 2008, Author: SAA)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

A draft report from Louis Tucker, Minority Staff Director to Vice Chairman Christopher Bond, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, outlining the recommendations of the previous document. (7 November 2008, Author: Louis Tucker)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

A list of contacts as stored in the AOL email account of John Brennan. It mostly contains email addresses (people in active email exchange with the account holder) as well as some Instant-Messenger IDs (AIM).

Download original TXT.

"National Security Position" form for John Brennan. This form, filled out by Brennan himself before he assumed his current position, reveals a quite comprehensive social graph of the current Director of the CIA with a lot of additional non-govermental and professional/military career details. (17 November 2008, Author: John Brennan)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

FAX from the General Counsel of the CIA to the Goverment Accountability Office about a legal quarrel between the CIA and "The Analysis Corporation". TAC seems to have lost a tender for a US watchlist-related software project to a competitor. Issues seem to revolve around "growth of historical data" and "real-time responsiveness" of the system. (15 February 2008, Sender: CIA, Office of General Counsel, Larry Passar)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

Challenges for the US Intelligence Community in a post cold-war and post-9/11 world; a calling for inter-agency cooperation, a ten-year term for the Director of the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence. It also demands the autonomy of the Intelligence Community, that it "... must never be subject to political manipulation and interference." An unfinished paragraph is titled "Damaging Leaks of Classified Information". (15 July 2007, Author: John Brennan)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

Recommendations to the next President (assuming office in Jan. 2009) on how to play the figures on the U.S.-Iranian Chessboard (18 November 2007, Author: John Brennan)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

Letter from Vice Chairman Bond, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to his fellow board members with a proposal on how to make future interrogation methods "compliant" and "legal". Instead of listing all allowed methods, every kind of interrogation should be considered compliant, as long as it is not explicitly forbidden by the "Army Field Manual" (AFM). (May 2008)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

A bill from July 2008 called "Limitations on Interrogation Techniques Act of 2008" explicitly list the forbidden interrogation techniques mentioned in the previous document and can be considered a direct implementation of the recommendations of Christopher Bond. (31 July 2008)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

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WikiLeaks - CIA Director John Brennan emails

Story highlights

Though all of the documents predate Brennan's time in the Obama administration and reveal no classified data, information such as Social Security numbers, passport numbers and addresses of his family and associates is causing great concern within the agency.

Among the documents released online is Brennan's incomplete SF86, a questionnaire federal employees must fill out in order to gain security clearance. Along with personally identifiable information, this document includes personal information about his health, criminal history, questions about whether he's used drugs and associations with foreign governments.

Other documents, such as a letter from the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a congressional bill from 2008 that would limit interrogation techniques, and a intelligence policy paper were also published but offered little insight into the inner workings of the intelligence community.

The hackers, who claim to have illegally accessed Brennan's personal server last week, are believed to have supplied WikiLeaks with this information and are threatening to release more documents.

"The hacking of the Brennan family account is a crime and the Brennan family is the victim," the CIA said in a statement. "The private electronic holdings of the Brennan family were plundered with malicious intent and are now being distributed across the web. This attack is something that could happen to anyone and should be condemned, not promoted. There is no indication that any the documents released thus far are classified. In fact, they appear to be documents that a private citizen with national security interests and expertise would be expected to possess."

WikiLeaks tweeted late Wednesday afternoon that it planned to release more emails from Brennan.

"Tomorrow we continue our @CIA chief John Brennan email series, including on US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. #AfPak #CIA," the group said.

CNN's Evan Perez contributed to this report.

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WikiLeaks publishes CIA chief's personal info

Documents from CIA Director John Brennan's personal email account released by WikiLeaks Wednesday afternoon do not contain any revelations about U.S. intelligence or any classified material, but do include a draft of a paper that urges the president to "tone down" rhetoric about Iran.

There are no actual emails in the release, the first in a series planned by WikiLeaks. Instead, the group published six documents culled from Brennan's emails.

One draft position paper outlines challenges and changes for the U.S. intelligence community after 9/11. It was written in July 2007, but the author is not named. At the time, Brennan was an advisor to the Obama campaign on national security.

Another document that apparently dates from 2007 outlines recommendations on diplomacy and intelligence related to Iran for "whoever takes up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in January 2009."

The first recommendation in the document, entitled "The Conundrum of Iran," is "Tone Down the Rhetoric" and the second is "Establish a Direct Dialogue with Tehran." Brennan suggests that former Secretary of State Colin Powell be tapped to negotiate with the Iranians, and names other potential candidates -- Al Gore, Madeleine Albright, Tony Lake and Brent Scowcroft.

Brennan published a paper with the same name and much of the same text in an academic journal in 2008, but adding Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Carter, to the list of possible negotiators.

"If WikiLeaks would release his paper, it might actually cause some people to read it," said a former top Pentagon official.

Both the Iran and the post-9/11 documents released by WikiLeaks are apparently drafts, since they include incomplete paragraphs and sentences.

Two other documents in the WikiLeaks dump that relate to torture were not authored by Brennan, but by then-Sen. Kit Bond, R-Missouri. One details a proposal for future interrogation methods not prohibited by the Army Field Manual, while the other is the text of a bill, dated May 2008, to limit interrogation techniques. Bond left the Senate in 2011, but was the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2008. His bill was referred to the committee in August 2008 but never made it any further.

Another document is part of a contract dispute between Brennan's private firm and the CIA in 2007.

The documents also include a form dated Nov. 17, 2008 that Brennan filled out to obtain a national security clearance. It contains some personal information but is not completed. After Obama's election and inauguration, Brennan became his homeland security advisor. He became CIA director in 2013.

After a hacker revealed he had gained access to Brennan's personal AOL account earlier this week, as first reported by the New York Post, Wikileaks said it would begin releasing emails from the account. It has not said when to expect the next release of emails or documents.

In a statement, a CIA spokesman called the hacking of the Brennan account a crime. "The private electronic holdings of the Brennan family were plundered with malicious intent and are now being distributed across the web," said the statement. "This attack is something that could happen to anyone and should be condemned, not promoted."

"There is no indication that any the documents released thus far are classified. In fact, they appear to be documents that a private citizen with national security interests and expertise would be expected to possess."

Read the original post:
Brennan WikiLeaks Dump Contains No Bombshells

Origem: Wikipdia, a enciclopdia livre.

WikiLeaks uma organizao transnacional sem fins lucrativos, sediada na Sucia,[1] que publica, em sua pgina (site), postagens (posts) de fontes annimas, documentos, fotos e informaes confidenciais, vazadas de governos ou empresas, sobre assuntos sensveis. A pgina (site) foi construda com base em vrios pacotes de programas (software), incluindo MediaWiki, Freenet, Tor e PGP.[2] Apesar do seu nome, a WikiLeaks no uma wiki - leitores que no tm as permisses adequadas no podem editar o seu contedo.

A pgina (site), administrado por The Sunshine Press,[3] foi lanado em dezembro de 2006 e, em meados de novembro de 2007, j continha 1,2 milho de documentos.[4] Seu principal editor e porta-voz o australiano Julian Assange, jornalista e ciberativista.[5]

Ao longo de 2010, WikiLeaks publicou grandes quantidades de documentos confidenciais do governo dos Estados Unidos, com forte repercusso mundial. Em abril, divulgou um vdeo de 2007, que mostra o ataque de um helicptero Apache estado-unidense, matando pelo menos 12 pessoas - dentre as quais dois jornalistas da agncia de notcias Reuters - em Bagd, no contexto da ocupao do Iraque. O vdeo do ataque areo em Bagd (Collateral Murder) uma das mais notveis publicaes da pgina (site).[6][7] Outro documento polmico mostrado pela pgina (site) a cpia de um manual de instrues para tratamento de prisioneiros na priso militar estado-unidense de Guantnamo, em Cuba.[8] Em julho do mesmo ano, WikiLeaks promoveu a divulgao de uma grande quantidade de documentos secretos do exrcito dos Estados Unidos, reportando a morte de milhares de civis na guerra do Afeganisto em decorrncia da ao de militares norte-americanos. Finalmente, em novembro, publicou uma srie de telegramas secretos enviados pelas embaixadas dos Estados Unidos ao governo do pas.

Como aliados, atraiu os meios tradicionais El Pas, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Guardian e The New York Times, com o intuito de divulgar contedo secreto da diplomacia americana. Recebeu manifestaes de apoio de lderes mundiais como Lus Incio Lula da Silva e Vladimir Putin, que defenderam sua liberdade. [9]

Em 2 de fevereiro de 2011, o WikiLeaks foi indicado ao Prmio Nobel da Paz,[10][11] pelo parlamentar noruegus Snorre Valen. O autor da proposta disse que o WikiLeaks "uma das contribuies mais importantes para a liberdade de expresso e transparncia" no sculo XXI. "Ao divulgar informaes sobre corrupo, violaes dos direitos humanos e crimes de guerra, o WikiLeaks um candidato natural ao Prmio Nobel da Paz", acrescentou.[12]

Seu fundador, Julian Assange publicou livros: Cypherpunks Liberdade e o futuro da Internet, onde acusa governos de usarem a internet com objetivos de manuteno do poder poltico e econmico das naes e Wikileaks A guerra de Julian Assange contra os segredos de Estado. [13]

O domnio wikileaks.org foi registrado em 4 de outubro de 2006, mas o projeto WikiLeaks foi mantido em segredo at a publicao do primeiro documento, em dezembro do mesmo ano.[14][15]

Em janeiro de 2007, Steven Aftergood, editor do Secrecy News, veio a pblico apresentar o site.[16] Segundo o site da WikiLeaks, entre seus fundadores esto dissidentes chineses, jornalistas, matemticos e tecnlogos de empresas start-up dos EUA, de Taiwan, da Europa, Austrlia e frica do Sul.[17][18] . Os organizadores afirmam que a WikiLeaks uma entidade autorregulada.

Para a postagem, a WikiLeaks recomenda vivamente o uso do Tor, visando a preservar a privacidade dos seus usurios,[19] e garante que a informao colocada pelos usurios no rastrevel.

De acordo com uma entrevista de janeiro de 2010, a equipe da WikiLeaks constituda por menos de dez pessoas que trabalham em tempo integral, mas especula-se que a WikiLeaks conte com algo entre mil e dois mil voluntrios, que colaboram ocasionalmente - a maioria sem qualquer contrapartida financeira. Entre os intelectuais, ativistas, jornalistas e programadores listados pela WikiLeaks como membros de seu conselho, esto o australiano Phillip Adams (produtor do clssico documentrio Coraes e mentes), o brasileiro Chico Whitaker (proponente e articulador do Frum Social Mundial), o chins Wang Dan (um dos lderes dos protestos da Praa Tiananmen em 1989) e Ben Laurie (criador do Apache-SSL e um dos maiores especialistas mundiais em segurana de rede).[20][21]

A organizao no possui sede oficial. As despesas por ano so de cerca de 200.000 dlares, principalmente empregues em servidores, burocracia e pagamento de advogados[22] , mas atingiria os 600.000 dlares se o trabalho doado pelos voluntrios fosse remunerado. Para pagar suas despesas judiciais, a WikiLeaks conta com doaes de centenas de milhares de dlares feitas por organizaes de mdia, tais como a Associated Press, o Los Angeles Times e a National Newspaper Publishers Association. As suas nicas fontes de rendimentos so as doaes, mas a WikiLeaks planeja criar um modelo de leilo, no qual ser vendido o acesso precoce a documentos confidenciais. Segundo a fundao Wau Holland[23] , a WikiLeaks no recebe dinheiro para cobrir custos de pessoal, mas sim para hardware, viagens e largura de banda. O site sofre sanes de vrias organizaes bancrias.[24]

As atividades da WikiLeaks tiveram enorme repercusso mundial aps a divulgao de uma grande massa de documentos secretos do exrcito dos Estados Unidos, reportando a morte de milhares de civis na guerra do Afeganisto por militares norte-americanos. Julian Assange, o fundador da WikiLeaks, vazou (da o nome leak: vazar, em ingls, isto , tornar pblica uma informao reservada) parte dos quase 92 mil documentos[25] recebidos de um colaborador para The New York Times, The Guardian e Der Spiegel e depois publicou-os na Internet.[26][27] Os relatrios abrangem o perodo de janeiro de 2004 a dezembro de 2009.[28][29][30]

Assange defendeu a confiabilidade do material vazado sobre o conflito e disse que os documentos contm evidncias de que crimes de guerra foram cometidos por tropas de diversas nacionalidades, em especial pelas foras estadunidenses, durante a ocupao militar do Afeganisto.[31]

O Pentgono suspeita que o responsvel pela fuga das informaes para a WikiLeaks tenha sido o soldado Bradley Manning, de 22 anos, que teria descarregado dezenas de milhares de documentos, utilizando-se de um sistema militar de correio eletrnico, denominado Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, ao qual apenas militares autorizados tm acesso. Inicialmente Manning ficou preso em uma base militar no Kuwait. Em 28 de julho, foi transferido para a base dos fuzileiros navais de Quantico, na Virginia, onde est mantido em confinamento solitrio.

Em junho, Manning foi acusado de oito violaes do Cdigo Penal dos Estados Unidos. Ele tambm suspeito de ter passado WikiLeaks o vdeo do helicptero que matou civis desarmados perto de Bagd, divulgado anteriormente. Alm de relatos de episdios de grande violncia, envolvendo a morte de civis e possveis crimes de guerra, os documentos indicam a existncia de eventual colaborao entre o servio secreto do Paquisto (pas aliado dos EUA) e os talibs, em ataques contra militares da coligao da OTAN no Afeganisto. Est em curso uma investigao para determinar se h outras pessoas envolvidas no caso.[32]

Em entrevista ao The Washington Post, um especialista em computao, da rea de Boston, reportou que, em meados de junho - depois que Manning foi acusado de passar para a WikiLeaks o vdeo do ataque de helicptero contra os civis iraquianos e antes do vazamento dos arquivos sobre a guerra do Afeganisto - investigadores do governo dos EUA lhe ofereceram dinheiro para que ele se "infiltrasse" na WikiLeaks, mas ele no aceitou.[33]

Para o governo dos Estados Unidos, o vazamento coloca em risco as vidas dos soldados estado-unidenses e do pessoal afego, abala a confiana dos aliados e ameaa a segurana nacional.[34] O diretor da WikiLeaks, porm, criticou a reao do governo norte-americano ao vazamento. Atacou especialmente o Secretrio de Defesa, Robert Gates, acusando-o de estar por trs das mortes de milhares de crianas e adultos no Afeganisto e no Iraque. Segundo Assange, Gates poderia ter anunciado a abertura de investigaes sobre as mortes denunciadas ou ter-se desculpado diante do povo afego, mas no fez nada disso. "Decidiu tratar estes assuntos e os pases afetados com desprezo", concluiu.[35]

Alguns analistas compararam este episdio a outro grande caso de vazamento, conhecido como Pentagon Papers, ocorrido em 1971, quando o The New York Times iniciou a publicao seriada de um grande relatrio do governo Lyndon Johnson sobre as aes polticas e militares dos EUA no Vietn. Os documentos mostraram que o governo mentira acerca dos seus interesses e aes no conflito. Richard Nixon, ento no poder, conseguiu sustar a publicao na Justia, alegando que o vazamento colocava em risco a segurana nacional, mas depois a Suprema Corte do pas julgou que s uma imprensa livre pode efetivamente expor as fraudes de um governo. Assim, o Times pde prosseguir na publicao do relatrio.[36]

Sobre sua segurana pessoal, Assange revelou que algumas pessoas, como o famoso reprter investigativo Seymour Hersh, fizeram chegar a ele recomendaes para que se cuide. Tambm um ex-diplomata e jornalista australiano, especializado em segurana nacional, alertou-o de que o governo dos Estados Unidos tentou articular-se com os servios de inteligncia australianos para intensificar a vigilncia e eventualmente efetuar a deteno do pessoal da WikiLeaks. Segundo a mesma fonte, o governo australiano rejeitou a proposta.[37]

Em 29 de julho, Jacob Appelbaum, especialista em segurana de computadores e um dos voluntrios da WikiLeaks, foi detido no aeroporto de Newark e interrogado durante trs horas, por agentes da inteligncia do exrcito americano e funcionrios do controle de imigrao (ICE), a respeito de suas relaes com a WikiLeaks e com Julian Assange e sobre suas opinies sobre as guerras no Iraque e no Afeganisto. Appelbaum, de 27 anos, que trabalha para a Tor Project, como desenvolvedor de softwares, retornava de uma viagem ao exterior. Seu laptop e seus trs telefones celulares foram apreendidos.

O computador (laptop) foi devolvido, depois de ter o seu contedo presumivelmente copiado. Appelbaum contou imprensa que os agentes do ICE no permitiram que ele fosse assistido por um advogado durante o interrogatrio.[38][39] Segundo Appelbaum, os agentes o ameaaram com a possibilidade de det-lo para um novo interrogatrio a cada vez que voltasse aos Estados Unidos. "Questionaram minha capacidade de voltar a entrar nos Estados Unidos, apesar de eu ser um cidado americano. muito perturbador pensar que, a cada vez que eu cruzar a fronteira, serei tratado dessa maneira", declarou ele, informando que viaja para o exterior a negcios duas vezes por ms.[40]

Iraq War Logs (Registros da Guerra do Iraque) uma coleo de 391.832 relatrios do Exrcito dos Estados Unidos sobre a Guerra do Iraque, abrangendo o perodo de 1 de janeiro de 2004 a 31 de dezembro de 2009, publicada no portal WikiLeaks a 22 de outubro de 2010, em coordenao com vrios meios de comunicao (The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Al Jazeera e o Bureau of Investigative Journalism), que dispunham previamente da documentao militar estadunidense e britnica.

Segundo os relatrios, houve 109.032 mortes na guerra do Iraque, incluindo 66.081 (mais de 60%) civis, 23.984 inimigos (os chamados "insurgentes"), 15.196 membros das foras do governo iraquiano e 3.771 membros das foras da coalizo.[41][42] Trata-se do maior vazamento na histria militar dos Estados Unidos, superando o vazamento de documentos sobre a guerra do Afeganisto, publicados em julho de 2010.[43][44][45][46][47] A invaso do Iraque ocorreu entre 20 de maro e 1 de maio de 2003. A guerra terminou em 18 de agosto de 2010, com a retirada das ltimas tropas de combate dos EUA - embora 50.000 militares permaneam no Iraque como "conselheiros", at o fim de 2011, para treinar as foras governamentais iraquianas e "proteger os interesses dos Estados Unidos".[48]

Em 28 de novembro de 2010, publicou uma srie de telegramas secretos de embaixadas e do governo estadunidense. Dois dias depois, em 30 de novembro, a pedido da justia da Sucia, a Interpol distribuiu em 188 pases uma notificao vermelha, ou seja, um chamado queles que souberem do paradeiro de Julian Assange para que entrem em contato com a polcia - o que equivale aproximadamente a uma ordem internacional de priso. Isso porque, em agosto, duas mulheres suecas denunciaram Assange por violncia sexual.

Em 1 de dezembro de 2010, a WikiLeaks anunciou que a Amazon o expulsara dos seus servidores, onde estava hospedado desde que comearam os ataques contra seu hospedeiro sueco, Bahnhof, em 28 de novembro, o que tornou o acesso instvel. Quando, no dia 1, os servidores da Amazon pararam de responder aos pedidos de acesso, a WikiLeaks ficou indisponvel durante vrias horas. O senador estado-unidense Joe Lieberman, que tambm chefe do Comit de Segurana Interna do Senado dos EUA, informou que a deciso da Amazon atendia a pedidos de membros do congresso americano.[49] Segundo o senador, "a deciso da companhia Amazon de cortar a WikiLeaks agora a deciso correta e deveria estabelecer o padro para as demais", referindo-se aos demais servidores onde a WikiLeaks tem documentos armazenados.

No dia 3 de dezembro de 2010, aps o EveryDNS retirar o domnio http://wikileaks.org/ do ar,[50] o WikiLeaks pediu atravs do Twitter que ajudassem a equipe, criando mirrors (espelhos) do site. O novo site foi movido para http://wikileaks.ch/, hospedado na Sua,[51] e aproximadamente 507 espelhos (mirrors) em todo o mundo foram criados.[52] Uma lista de espelhos (mirrors) pode ser encontrada em http://wikileaks.ch/mirrors.html. No mesmo dia, o site ficou disponvel oficialmente tambm atravs dos domnios http://wikileaks.de/, http://wikileaks.fi/ e http://wikileaks.nl/.%5B53%5D

Discusses sobre uma suposta censura do WikiLeaks por parte do Twitter comearam a surgir por volta de 5 de dezembro de 2010, motivadas pela inexistncia de Trend Topics relacionados ao WikiLeaks recentemente, quando era claro que era um assunto muito comentado na semana.[54][55] Twitter respondeu, afirmando que no h qualquer ao de censura ou apologia ao WikiLeaks por parte deles, explicando ainda como funciona o algoritmo usado para determinar se um assunto uma tendncia.[56][57] Dias depois, o Twitter divulgou seu balano anual, no qual o "Wikileaks Cablegate" aparece como a stima notcia mais comentada no ano.

Os ataques de hackers aos sites da MasterCard e Visa tiveram incio na quarta-feira de 8 de dezembro de 2010 quando crackers do Grupo Anonymous danificaram a rede de computadores das empresas de cartes de crdito MasterCard e Visa, em retaliao ao bloqueio de doaes para o site WikiLeaks.[59]

WikiLeaks recebeu vrios prmios para novas mdias, incluindo o New Media Award 2008 da revista The Economist.[60] Em junho de 2009, a WikiLeaks e Julian Assange ganharam o Media Award 2009 (categoria New Media) da Anistia Internacional[61] pela publicao de Kenya: The Cry of Blood - Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances, em 2008,[62] tratando-se de um relatrio da Comisso Nacional Queniana de Direitos Humanos sobre a poltica de extermnio no Qunia. Em maio de 2010, a WikiLeaks foi referida como o nmero 1 entre os "websites que poderiam mudar completamente o formato atual das notcias".[63]

Em abril de 2010, a WikiLeaks postou, no website Collateral Murder, um vdeo feito em 12 de julho de 2007, que mostrava civis iraquianos sendo mortos durante um ataque areo das foras militares dos Estados Unidos. Em julho do mesmo ano, a organizao ganhou maior visibilidade mundial, ao divulgar o Afghan War Diary, uma compilao de mais de 76.900 documentos secretos do governo americano sobre a Guerra do Afeganisto.

No ms de outubro 2010, em articulao com grandes organizaes da mdia, a WikiLeaks publicou um pacote com quase 400.000 documentos secretos, denominado Iraq War Logs, reportando torturas de prisioneiros e ataques a civis pelos norte-americanos e seus aliados, na Guerra do Iraque. Segundo os vazamentos, o governo brasileiro prendeu rabes em segredo[64] , fortaleceu relaes diplomticas com o Chile de Michelle Bachelet[65] e a Frana de Nicolas Sarkozy[66] . Alm disso, os americanos ficaram preocupados com o risco de apago durante a copa de 2014.[67] Tambm houve revelaes sobre o tratado da parceria transpacfico.[68]

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WikiLeaks Wikipdia, a enciclopdia livre

Julian Assange has been detained without charge for 1657 days. 1097 days inside the Ecuadorian Embassy. Chelsea Manning has been in prison for 1851 days. Jeremy Hammond has been in prison for 1203 days. Barrett Brown has been in prison for 1012 days. A secret Grand Jury on WikiLeaks has been active for 1949 days.

WikiLeaks News:

Julian Assange has been detained without charge for 1656 days. 1096 days inside the Ecuadorian Embassy. Chelsea Manning has been in prison for 1850 days. Jeremy Hammond has been in prison for 1202 days. Barrett Brown has been in prison for 1011 days. A secret Grand Jury on WikiLeaks has been active for 1948 days.

WikiLeaks News:

Julian Assange has been detained without charge for 1654 days. 1094 days inside the Ecuadorian Embassy. Chelsea Manning has been in prison for 1848 days. Jeremy Hammond has been in prison for 1200 days. Barrett Brown has been in prison for 1009 days. A secret Grand Jury on WikiLeaks has been active for 1946 days.

WikiLeaks News:

Julian Assange News:

Chelsea Manning News:

Courthouse News released the first part of their exclusive interview with former Army Maj. Ashden Fein, the head prosecutor during the trial of Chelsea Manning.

Julian Assange has been detained without charge for 1652 days. 1092 days inside the Ecuadorian Embassy. Chelsea Manning has been in prison for 1846 days. Jeremy Hammond has been in prison for 1198 days. Barrett Brown has been in prison for 1007 days. A secret Grand Jury on WikiLeaks has been active for 1944 days.

WikiLeaks News:

Julian Assange News:

Julian Assange has been detained without charge for 1651 days. 1091 days inside the Ecuadorian Embassy. Chelsea Manning has been in prison for 1845 days. Jeremy Hammond has been in prison for 1197 days. Barrett Brown has been in prison for 1006 days. A secret Grand Jury on WikiLeaks has been active for 1943 days.

WikiLeaks News:

Julian Assange News:

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- This Day in WikiLeaks

AntonChalakov via Getty Images

Some of the most important historical information for understanding current events comes, not surprisingly, from sources that were intended to be shielded from the public. From November 2010 to September 2011, more than 250,000 communications between U.S. diplomats that were never meant to see the light of day were made public. They are available at WikiLeaks, the nonprofit media organization that accepts confidential information from anonymous sources and releases it to news sources and the public.

A number of researchers have put together a treasure trove of information and analysis that can be immensely clarifying. (The recently released book from this research, published by Verso, is "The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to U.S. Empire.")

Consider Syria, which is dominating the international news because of increased Russian military intervention as well as a surge of some 500,000 refugees from the region arriving in Europe. Why has it taken so long for Washington to even begin -- yes, it is unfortunately just beginning -- to reconsider the policy of requiring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to agree to resign before any meaningful negotiations can take place? After all, any diplomat could have told the White House that demanding the political suicide of one party to a civil war as a condition for negotiations is not how civil wars end. Practically speaking, this policy has been a commitment to indefinite warfare.

The answer can be found in diplomatic communications released by WikiLeaks, which show that regime change has been the policy of the U.S. government as far back as 2006. Even more horrifying -- after hundreds of thousands of deaths, untold lives ruined and four million people displaced -- is the evidence that Washington has had a policy of promoting sectarian warfare in Syria for the purpose of destabilizing the Assad government. A cable from the top U.S. embassy official (the charg d'affaires) in Damascus in December 2006 offers suggestions for how Washington could exacerbate and take advantage of certain "vulnerabilities" of the government of Syria. Vulnerabilities to be exploited include "the presence of transiting Islamist extremists" and "Sunni fears of Iranian influence."

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WikiLeaks Cables Shed Needed Light on Current U.S. Foreign ...

Cablegate Description Release of 251,287 United States diplomatic cables Dates of cables 19662010 Period of release 18 February 2010 1 September 2011 Key publishers El Pas, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, The Guardian, The New York Times, WikiLeaks Related articles Afghan War documents leak, Iraq War documents leak Subject Data protection, First Amendment, freedom of information, freedom of speech

The United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began on Sunday, 28 November 2010[1] when WikiLeaksa non-profit organization that publishes submissions from anonymous whistleblowersbegan releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates, embassies, and diplomatic missions around the world. Dated between December 1966 and February 2010, the cables contain diplomatic analysis from world leaders, and the diplomats' assessment of host countries and their officials.[2] According to WikiLeaks, the 251,287 cables consist of 261,276,536 words, making Cablegate "the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain."[3]

The first document, the so-called Reykjavik 13 cable, was released by WikiLeaks on 18 February 2010, and was followed by the release of State Department profiles of Icelandic politicians a month later.[4] Later that year, Julian Assange, WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief, reached an agreement with media partners in Europe and the United States to publish the rest of the cables in redacted form, removing the names of sources and others in vulnerable positions. On 28 November, the first 220 cables were published under this agreement by El Pas (Spain), Der Spiegel (Germany), Le Monde (France), The Guardian (United Kingdom) and The New York Times (United States).[5] WikiLeaks had planned to release the rest over several months, and as of 11 January 2011, 2,017 had been published.

The remaining cables were published in September 2011 after a series of events compromised the security of a WikiLeaks file containing the cables. This included WikiLeaks volunteers placing an encrypted file containing all WikiLeaks data online as "insurance" in July 2010, in case something happened to the organization.[6] In February 2011 David Leigh of The Guardian published the encryption passphrase in a book; he had received it from Assange so he could access a copy of the Cablegate file, and believed the passphrase was a temporary one, unique to that file. In August 2011, a German magazine, Der Freitag, published some of these details, enabling others to piece the information together and decrypt the Cablegate files. The cables were then available online, fully unredacted. In response, WikiLeaks decided on 1 September 2011 to publish all 251,287 unedited documents.[7]

The publication of the cables was the third in a series of U.S. classified document "mega-leaks" distributed by WikiLeaks in 2010, following the Afghan War documents leak in July, and the Iraq War documents leak in October. Over 130,000 of the cables are unclassified, some 100,000 are labeled "confidential", around 15,000 have the higher classification "secret", and none are classified as "top secret" on the classification scale.[5] Reactions to the leak in 2010 varied. Western governments expressed strong disapproval, while the material generated intense interest from the public and journalists. Some political leaders referred to Assange as a criminal, while blaming the U.S. Department of Defense for security lapses. Supporters of Assange referred to him in November 2010 as a key defender of free speech and freedom of the press.[8] Reaction to the release in September 2011 of the unredacted cables attracted stronger criticism, and was condemned by the five newspapers that had first published the cables in redacted form in November 2010.[9]

In June 2010, the magazine Wired reported that the U.S. State Department and embassy personnel were concerned that Chelsea (then known as Bradley) Manning, a United States Army soldier charged with the unauthorized download of classified material while stationed in Iraq, had leaked diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks rejected the report as inaccurate: "Allegations in Wired that we have been sent 260,000 classified U.S. embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect".[10][11]

However, by June 2010, The Guardian had been offered "half a million military dispatches from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. There might be more after that, including an immense bundle of confidential diplomatic cables", and Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian had contacted Bill Keller, editor of The New York Times, to see if he would be interested in sharing the dissemination of the information.[12]

Manning was suspected to have uploaded all that was obtained to WikiLeaks, which chose to release the material in stages so as to have the greatest possible impact.[13]

According to The Guardian, all the diplomatic cables were marked "Sipdis", denoting "secret internet protocol distribution", which means they had been distributed via the closed U.S. SIPRNet, the U.S. Department of Defense's classified version of the civilian internet.[14] More than three million U.S. government personnel and soldiers have access to this network.[15] Documents marked "top secret" are not included in the system. Such a large quantity of secret information was available to a wide audience because, as The Guardian alleged, after the 11 September attacks an increased focus had been placed on sharing information since gaps in intra-governmental information sharing had been exposed.[14] More specifically, the diplomatic, military, law enforcement and intelligence communities would be able to do their jobs better with this easy access to analytic and operative information.[14] A spokesman said that in the previous weeks and months additional measures had been taken to improve the security of the system and prevent leaks.[14]

On 22 November, an announcement was made via WikiLeaks's Twitter feed that the next release would be "7the size of the Iraq War Logs".[16][17] U.S. authorities and the media had speculated, at the time, that they could contain diplomatic cables.[18] Prior to the expected leak, the government of the United Kingdom (UK) sent a DA-Notice to UK newspapers, which requested advance notice from newspapers regarding the expected publication.[19]Index on Censorship pointed out that "there is no obligation on [the] media to comply".[19] Under the terms of a DA-Notice, "[n]ewspaper editors would speak to [the] Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee prior to publication".[19]The Guardian was revealed to have been the source of the copy of the documents given to The New York Times in order to prevent the British government from obtaining any injunction against its publication.[20] The Pakistani newspaper Dawn stated that the U.S. newspapers The New York Times and The Washington Post were expected to publish parts of the diplomatic cables on 28 November, including 94 Pakistan-related documents.[21]

On 26 November, Assange sent a letter to the U.S. Department of State, via his lawyer Jennifer Robinson, inviting them to "privately nominate any specific instances (record numbers or names) where it considers the publication of information would put individual persons at significant risk of harm that has not already been addressed".[22][23][24]Harold Koh, the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, rejected the proposal, stating: "We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained U.S. Government classified materials".[24] Assange responded by writing back to the U.S. State Department that "you have chosen to respond in a manner which leads me to conclude that the supposed risks are entirely fanciful and you are instead concerned to suppress evidence of human rights abuse and other criminal behaviour".[25][26] Ahead of the leak, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other American officials contacted governments in several countries about the impending release.[27]

Nov: Bradley Manning allegedly contacts WikiLeaks.

18 Feb: WikiLeaks releases Reykjavik 13 cable.

29 Mar : WikiLeaks releases State Dept profiles of Icelandic politicians.

26 May: Manning arrested in Iraq.

30 July: Wikileaks posts 1.4 gigabyte encrypted file containing WL material on several Internet exchange platforms as "insurance."

Aug: Julian Assange gives The Guardian's David Leigh the Cablegate file's encryption passphrase.

15 Sep: Daniel Domscheit-Berg formally leaves WikiLeaks.

Sep: WikiLeaks volunteer gives Heather Brooke Cablegate file access.

28 Nov: 220 redacted cables published by five newspapers.

11 Jan: Redacted publication continues; 2,017 cables published as of this date.

1 Feb: David Leigh and Luke Harding publish Cablegate passphrase in a book, believing it no longer in use.

25 Aug: Der Freitag reports file and passphrase are online; does not reveal passphrase.

Aug: Others piece details together; gain access.

1 Sep: WikiLeaks releases all 251,287 unredacted cables.

The five newspapers that had obtained an advance copy of all leaked cables began releasing the cables on 28 November 2010, and WikiLeaks made the cables selected by these newspapers and redacted by their journalists available on its website. "They are releasing the documents we selected", Le Monde's managing editor, Sylvie Kauffmann, said in an interview.[28]

WikiLeaks aimed to release the cables in phases over several months due to their global scope and significance.[29] The first batch of leaks released comprised 220 cables.[29] Further cables were subsequently made available on the WikiLeaks website. The full set of cables published by WikiLeaks can be browsed and searched by a variety of websites, see Sites offering search capabilities.[30]

The contents of the U.S. diplomatic cables leak describe in detail events and incidents surrounding international affairs from 274 embassies dating from 28 December 1966 to 28 February 2010. The diplomatic cables revealed numerous unguarded comments and revelations: critiques and praises about the host countries of various U.S. embassies, discussion and resolutions towards ending ongoing tension in the Middle East, efforts for and resistance against nuclear disarmament, actions in the War on Terror, assessments of other threats around the world, dealings between various countries, U.S. intelligence and counterintelligence efforts, U.S. support of dictatorship and other diplomatic actions.

The leaked cables revealed that diplomats of the U.S. and Britain eavesdropped on Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, in apparent violation of international treaties prohibiting spying at the UN.[31]

The Guardian released its coverage of the leaked cables in numerous articles, including an interactive database, starting on 28 November.[32]

Der Spiegel also released its preliminary report, with extended coverage promised for the next day.[33] Its cover for 29 November was also leaked with the initial report.[34]

The New York Times initially covered the story in a nine-part series spanning nine days, with the first story published simultaneously with the other outlets.[35]The New York Times was not originally intended to receive the leak, allegedly[36] due to its unflattering portrayal of the site's founder, but The Guardian decided to share coverage, citing earlier cooperation while covering the Afghan and Iraqi war logs.

The Washington Post reported that it also requested permission to see the documents, but was rejected for undisclosed reasons.[36]

El Pas released its report[37] saying there was an agreement between the newspapers for simultaneous publication of the "internationally relevant" documents, but that each newspaper was free to select and treat those documents that primarily relate to its own country.[38]

Several of the newspapers coordinating with WikiLeaks have published some of the cables on their own websites.[39]

The Lebanese daily newspaper Al-Akhbar published about 183 cables on 2 December 2010.[40][41]

The Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet started reporting on the leaks early December.[42] In Norway Verdens Gang (VG) brought the first leaks concerning USA and the Norwegian government on 7 December.[43]

Aftenposten, a Norwegian daily newspaper, reported on 17 December 2010 that it had gained access to the full cable set of 251,287 documents.[44] While it is unclear how it received the documents, they were apparently not obtained directly from WikiLeaks. Aftenposten started releasing cables that are not available in the official WikiLeaks distribution.[45] As of 5 January 2011[ref], it had released just over one hundred cables unpublished by WikiLeaks, with about a third of these related to Sri Lanka, and many related to Norway.[45]

Politiken, a Danish daily newspaper, announced on 8 January 2011 that it had obtained access to the full set of cables.[46]

NRC, a Dutch daily newspaper, and RTL Nieuws, a Dutch television news service, announced on 14 January 2011 that they had gained access to the about 3000 cables sent from The Hague, via Aftenposten.[47]NOS announced on the same day that it had obtained these same cables from Wikileaks.[48]

Die Welt, a German daily newspaper, announced on 17 January 2011 that they had gained access to the full set of cables, via Aftenposten.[49]

Australian-based Fairfax Media obtained access to the cables under a separate arrangement.[50] Fairfax newspapers began releasing their own stories based on the leaked cables on 7 December 2010. Unlike other newspapers given access, Fairfax originally had not posted any of the original cables online, citing the need to maintain its competitive advantage over other Australian newspapers.[51] However, on 16 December 2010, Fairfax reversed its position, and began publishing the cables used in its stories.[52]

The Russian weekly newspaper Russky Reporter ( '')[53] has published a large number of cables, both in English and in Russian translation.[54]

The Cuban government-run website Razones de Cuba[55] started publishing Spanish translations of WikiLeaks documents on 23 December 2010.[56]

The Costa Rican newspaper La Nacin announced on 1 March 2011 it had received 827 cables from WikiLeaks which it started publishing the next day. 764 of these were sent from the U.S. Embassy in San Jos while 63 were sent from other embassies and deal with Costa Rican affairs.[57]

CNN was originally supposed to receive an advance copy of the documents as well, but did not after it refused to sign a confidentiality agreement with WikiLeaks.[58]The Wall Street Journal also refused advance access, apparently for similar reasons as CNN.[59]

The Ecuadorian newspaper El Universo started releasing 343 cables related to the Ecuadorian government or institutions on 6 April 2011.[60] The publication was done the day after the Spanish newspaper El Pas published a cable in which the ambassador Heather Hodges showed concerns regarding corruption in the Ecuadorian National Police, especially of Gral. Jaime Hurtado Vaca, former Police commander. The ambassador was later declared persona non grata and requested to leave the country as soon as possible.[61]

In August 2010, Assange gave Guardian journalist David Leigh an encryption key and a URL where he could locate the full Cablegate file. In February 2011, shortly before Domscheit-Berg's book appeared, he and Luke Harding, another Guardian journalist, published WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy via Guardian Books. In it, Leigh revealed the encryption key Assange had given him.[7]

"Denn der Freitag hat eine Datei, die auch unredigierte US-Botschaftsdepeschen enthlt. [...] Die Datei mit dem Namen "cables.csv" ist 1,73 Gigabyte gro. [...] Das Passwort zu dieser Datei liegt offen zutage und ist fr Kenner der Materie zu identifizieren."

"Because der Freitag have discovered a file on the internet which includes the unredacted embassy files. [...] The file is called "cables.csv" and is 1.73 gigabytes in size. [...] The password for this file is plain to see and identifiable for someone familiar with the material."

It is not yet clear how or when the encrypted file itself was released inadvertently. So far it appears that it was released to bittorrent as part of a mirror file for the WikiLeaks web server[63] on which it had been placed to aid in transferring the file from WikiLeaks to Leigh, and either not removed due to oversight, or mirrored by other WikiLeaks staff before it could be removed. The password leaked in Leigh's book is not the password for the whole of the "insurance file" which WikiLeaks published in a separate event. It also remains unclear if during the transfer process the file was exposed publicly under the assumption that it is acceptable to transfer an encrypted file in plain sight so long as the key remains secret.

On 25 August 2011, the German magazine Der Freitag published an article about it,[62] and while it left out the crucial details, there was enough to allow others to piece the information together. The story was also published in the Danish newspaper Dagbladet Information the same day.[64] By 1 September, the encrypted Cablegate file had been decrypted and published by a Twitter user, and WikiLeaks therefore decided to publish all the diplomatic cables unredacted. Their reasoning, according to Glenn Greenwald in Salon, was that government intelligence agencies were able to find and read the files, while ordinary people-including journalists, whistleblowers, and those directly affected-were not. WikiLeaks took the view that sources could better protect themselves if the information were equally available.[7] The archive includes 34,687 files on Iraq, 8,003 on Kuwait, 9,755 on Australia, and 12,606 on Egypt.[65] According to The Guardian, it includes more than 1,000 cables containing the names of individual activists, and around 150 identifying whistleblowers.[66]

Leigh disclaimed responsibility for the release, saying Assange had assured him the password would expire hours after it was disclosed to him.[67]The Guardian wrote that the decision to publish the cables was made by Assange alone, a decision that it-and its four previous media partners-condemned. The partners released a joint statement saying the uncensored publication put sources at risk of dismissal, detention and physical harm,[68] while other commentators have agreed with WikiLeaks' rationale for the release of unredacted cables.[7][69] Leigh was nevertheless criticized by several commentators, including Glenn Greenwald, who called the publication of the password "reckless", arguing that, even if it had been a temporary one, publishing it divulged the type of passwords WikiLeaks was using.[7] WikiLeaks said it was pursuing pre-litigation action against The Guardian for an alleged breach of a confidentiality agreement.[70]

An investigation into two senior Zimbabwe army commanders who communicated with US Ambassador Charles A. Ray was launched, with the two facing a possible court martial.[71] On September 14 the Committee to Protect Journalists said that an Ethiopian journalist named in the cables was forced to flee the country[72] but WikiLeaks accused the CPJ of distorting the situation "for marketing purposes".[73]Al Jazeera replaced its news director, Wadah Khanfar, on September 20 after he was identified in the cables.[74] The naming of mainland China residents reportedly "sparked an online witch-hunt by Chinese nationalist groups, with some advocating violence against those now known to have met with U.S. Embassy staff."[75]

About an hour prior to the planned release of the initial documents, WikiLeaks announced it was experiencing a massive distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS),[76] but vowed to still release the cables and documents via pre-agreed prominent media outlets El Pas, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and The New York Times.[77]

According to Arbor Networks, an Internet-analyst group, the DDoS attack accounted for between two and four gigabits per second (Gbit/s) of additional traffic to the WikiLeaks host network, compared to an average traffic of between twelve and fifteen Gbit/s under ordinary conditions.[78] The attack was slightly more powerful than ordinary DDoS attacks, though well below the maximum of 60 to 100Gbit/s of other major attacks during 2010.[78] The attack was claimed to have been carried out by a person by the name of "Jester", who describes himself as a "hacktivist". Jester took credit for the attack on Twitter, stating that WikiLeaks "threaten[ed] the lives of our troops and 'other assets'".[78][79]

On 2 December 2010, EveryDNS, who provide a free DNS hosting service, dropped WikiLeaks from its entries, citing DDoS attacks that "threatened the stability of its infrastructure",[80] but the site was copied and made available at many other addresses, an example of the Streisand effect.[81]

John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote a tweet saying: "The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops."[82]

Amazon.com removed WikiLeaks from its servers on 1 December 2010 at 19:30 GMT, and the latter website was unreachable until 20:17 GMT when the site had defaulted to its Swedish servers, hosted by Bahnhof. U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, among the members of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee who had questioned Amazon in private communication on the company's hosting of WikiLeaks and the illegally obtained documents, commended Amazon for the action;[83] WikiLeaks, however, responded by stating on its official Twitter page that "WikiLeaks servers at Amazon ousted. Free speech the land of the freefine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe",[84] and later that "If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books".[85]

On 4 December, Paypal cut off the account used by WikiLeaks to collect donations.[86]

On 6 December, the Swiss bank PostFinance announced that it had frozen the assets of Assange;[87] on the same day, MasterCard stopped payments to WikiLeaks,[88] with Visa following them on 7 December.[89]

Official efforts by the U.S. government to limit access to, conversation about, and general spread of the cables leaked by WikiLeaks were revealed by leading media organizations. A 4 December 2010 article by MSNBC,[90] reported that the Obama administration has warned federal government employees and students in educational institutions studying towards careers in public service that they must refrain from downloading or linking to any WikiLeaks documents. However, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley denied ordering students, stating, "We do not control private networks. We have issued no authoritative instructions to people who are not employees of the Department of State." He said the warning was from an "overzealous employee."[91] According to a 3 December 2010 article in The Guardian,[92] access to WikiLeaks has been blocked for federal workers. The U.S. Library of Congress, the U.S. Commerce Department and other government agencies have confirmed that the ban is already in place.

A spokesman for Columbia University confirmed on 4 December that its Office of Career Services sent an e-mail warning students at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs to refrain from accessing WikiLeaks cables and discussing this subject on the grounds that "discourse about the documents would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information".[93] However, this was quickly retracted on the following day. SIPA Dean John Henry Coatsworth wrote that "Freedom of information and expression is a core value of our institution, [...] thus, SIPA's position is that students have a right to discuss and debate any information in the public arena that they deem relevant to their studies or to their roles as global citizens, and to do so without fear of adverse consequences."[94]

The New York Times reported on 14 December[95] that the U.S. Air Force bars its personnel from access to news sites (such as those of The New York Times and The Guardian) that publish leaked cables.

On 18 December, the Bank of America stopped handling payments for WikiLeaks.[96] Bank of America is also blocking access to WikiLeaks from its internal network preventing employees from accessing WikiLeaks.[citation needed]

In response to perceived federal and corporate censorship of the cable leaks, internet group Anonymous attacked several of such websites via DDOS attacks. So far, the websites of the Swedish prosecutor, PostFinance (the Swiss post-office banking company), MasterCard and Visa have all been targeted.[97]

The websites of the government of Zimbabwe were targeted by Anonymous with DDoS attacks due to censorship of the WikiLeaks documents.[98] The websites of the government of Tunisia were targeted by Anonymous due to censorship of the WikiLeaks documents and the Tunisian revolution.[98] Tunisians were reported to be assisting in these denial-of-service attacks launched by Anonymous.[99] Anonymous's role in the DDoS attacks on the Tunisian government's websites have led to an upsurge of internet activism among Tunisians against the government.[100] Anonymous released an online message denouncing the government clampdown on recent protests and posted it on the Tunisian government website.[101] Anonymous has named their attacks as "Operation Tunisia".[102] Anonymous successfully DDoSsed eight Tunisian government websites. They plan attacks in Internet Relay Chat networks. Someone attacked Anonymous's website with a DDoS on 5 January.[103]

On 9 December 2010, major Pakistani newspapers (such as The News International, The Express Tribune and the Daily Jang) and television channels carried stories that claimed to detail U.S. diplomats' assessments of senior Indian generals as "vain, egotistical and genocidal", also saying "India's government is secretly allied with Hindu fundamentalists", and that "Indian spies are covertly supporting Islamist militants in Pakistan's tribal belt and Balochistan."[104] However, none of the cables revealed any such assessments. The claims were credited to an Islamabad-based news service agency that frequently ran pro-Pakistan Army stories.[104]

Later, The News International admitted the story "was dubious and may have been planted", and The Express Tribune offered "profuse" apologies to readers.[105]Urdu-language papers such as the Daily Jang, however, declined to retract the story.[105]

On 14 December 2010, a U.S. federal court subpoenaed Twitter for extensive information regarding WikiLeaks, but also put on a gagging order. The order was said to be part of an "ongoing criminal investigation", and required information regarding the Twitter accounts of WikiLeaks, Assange, Manning, Rop Gonggrijp, Jacob Appelbaum and Birgitta Jonsdottir. According to Salon.com journalist Glenn Greenwald, the court "gave Twitter three days to respond and barred the company from notifying anyone, including the users, of the existence of the Order."[106] Twitter requested that it be allowed to notify the users, giving them ten days to object. The court order was unsealed on 5 January 2011, and Jonsdottir decided to publicly fight the order.[107]

Elected representatives of Iceland have declared such actions by the U.S. government "serious", "peculiar", "outlandish", and akin to heavy breathing on the telephone.[108] The published subpoena text demands "you are to provide ... subscriber names, user names ... mailing addresses, residential addresses, business addresses ... telephone number[s] ... credit card or bank account number[s] ... billing records", "as well as 'destination email addresses and IP addresses".[109] As of 10 January 2011, there were 636,759 followers of the WikiLeaks Twitter feed with destination email addresses and IP addresses.[110][111]

The cable leaks have been pointed to as a catalyst for the 20102011 Tunisian revolution and government overthrow. Foreign Policy magazine said, "We might also count Tunisia as the first time that WikiLeaks pushed people over the brink."[112] Additionally, The New York Times said, "The protesters...found grist for the complaints in leaked cables from the United States Embassy in Tunisia, released by WikiLeaks, that detailed the self-dealing and excess of the president's family."[113][114][115]

It is widely believed that the Tunisian revolution then spread to other parts of the Middle East, turning into the Arab Spring.[116]

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United States diplomatic cables leak - Wikipedia, the free ...