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Here is a list of some of media actions that have been exposed, so far.

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Spanish Language network Univision went on the offensive against Donald Trump almost immediately, leading to a contentious relationship that led to anchor Jorge Ramos being tossed from a Trump a news conference in Iowa in August, 2015.

Now the Miami Herald has reported that Univisions chairman and Hollywood media mogul Haim Saban pushed the Clinton campaign to take on Trump.

Now, a series of emails pirated from the Democratic National Committee and published in the past week by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks show that within days of Trumps June 16, 2015, announcement of his candidacy, Univisions chairman, Haim Saban, was urging the Clinton campaign to take a tougher stance on Trumps anti-immigrant agenda.

Haim thinks we are underreacting to Trump/Hispanics. Thinks we can get something by standing up for Latinos or attacking Rs (Republicans) for not condemning, Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta wrote July 3, 2015, in an email to other Clinton staffers.

The email drew an immediate response from Jennifer Palmieri, a former White House spokeswoman who is communications director for the Clinton campaign: Haim is right we should be jamming this all the time.

In statement, Sabans spokeswoman, Stephanie Pillersdorf, acknowledged Saban has been a supporter of Hillary separate and way before his involvement with Univision, but said that played no factor in Univision coverage and emphasized that point by saying, Not even one iota. Zero, zero, zero.

Saban also denied any influence over the company hes chairman of in another email Wikileaks published. The Herald reports:

When the conservative Hot Air website published an article headlined Univisions pro-Hillary boosterism that called the network Clintons not-so-secret weapon, Saban jotted a quick email to the campaigns staff: I have nothing to do with it. I NEVER tell our news DEP what to cover . . . unlike some of my peers.

That brought a response from Huma Abedin, a close aide to Clinton: Welcome to our world!

But BloombergBusinessWeek magazine put Saban on its cover in October, while highlighting his close ties to Clinton and his business and political clashes with Donald Trump.

Last year, Univision disclosed that it had a plan to enable Televisa, which now owns almost 10percent of the company, to increase its position to as much as 40percent. But that would require the approval of the Federal Communications Commission, which must review any proposal to raise foreign ownership of a U.S. broadcast company beyond 25percent. To pull this off, Saban needs a supportive administration in Washington. Hillary is more likely to bless any expansion of foreign ownership between the two than Trump is, says veteran media analyst Porter Bibb.

John Harwood is a liberal contributor to The New York Timesand a CNBC correspondent who was chosen to moderate one of the Republican primary debates. Wikileakss emails have shown he tried to be an informal advisor to Hillary Clintons campaign.

One topic of concern was the scandal over Hillary Clintons private email server. As Breitbart News reported:

On July 24, 2015, the day that theTimes and other news outlets reported that an investigation by the inspectors general of the State Department and other federal agencies had concluded that Clinton had classified information on her private email server, contrary to her earlier public statements, Harwood emailed Podesta and Clinton aide Jake Sullivan, reassuringly: set aside process if theres any specific/plausible suggestion of nefarious email @HillaryClinton was trying to hide, I havent heard it.

On Oct. 1, the day after the State Department released another batch of Clintons recovered emails, Harwood emailed Podesta: how are you feeling about where things stand? Podesta replied: Battered but ok. Harwood replied: Sounds right to me.

Later that month, on Oct. 28, Harwood would go on to moderate the third Republican primary debate, and delivered a performance so obviously biased that even liberal commentators had to admit he had proven conservative suspicions correct. Harwood did not ask about Clintons emails.

Harwoods co-moderator at that Republican Primary Debate was Rebecca Quick, the co-host of CNBCs Squawk Box and anchorwoman of On the Money.

One Wikileaks email revealed Quicks pledge to cheerlead for Sylvia Mathews Burwell, President Barack Obamas nominee for the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.As Breitbart News reported:

In the April 11, 2014, e-mail, [Erskine] Bowles wrote to Quick to praise Burwell in the wake of the negative news coverage surrounding the appointment. I listen to some of the talk today about Sylvias move to HHS, wrote Bowles. As you may recall, I picked Sylvia and John Podesta to be my two Deputy Chiefs of Staff. I picked Sylvia not only because she is brilliant (Rhodes), really Becky Quick like nice, informed and smart, but most importantly to me she knows how to run a large organization and run it effectively. Regardless of your politics, any American should be glad that the President picked someone so competent to head such a critically important agency.

Less than three minutes later, Quick promised to defend Burwell. Thanks so much for the noteanyone with your recommendation is good by me, wrote Quick. Wish Id seen this earlier while we were still blabbering! Im out the first two days of next week but will make sure to defend her when things get further along in the nomination process.

Bowles later forwarded the e-mails to Podesta, who thanked him, writing, This will help a lot and I think at the end of the day most of these Senators will come through At any rate, thanks for coming thru as you always do. Love to Crandall and hope youll come to the Casa Podesta upcoming dinner to celebrate Sylvias swearing in.

Erskine Bowles is the former president of the University of North Carolina and the former chairman of Obamas National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

Glenn Greenwald and Lee Fang reported at The Intercept on documents that they were given exclusively by hacker Guccifer 2.0 which detailed how political writer Maggie Haberman has helped the Clinton family.

OneJanuary 2015 strategy document designed to plant stories on Clintons decision-making process about whether to run for president singled out reporter Maggie Haberman, then of Politico, now covering the election for the New York Times, as a friendly journalistwho has teed up stories for them in the past and never disappointed them. Nick Merrill, the campaign press secretary, produced the memo, according to the document metadata.

That strategy document plotted how Clinton aides could induce Haberman to write a story on the thoroughness and profound introspection involved in Clintons decision-making process. The following month,when she was at the Times, Haberman published two stories on Clintons vetting process; in this instance, Habermansstories were more sophisticated, nuanced, and even somewhat more critical than what the Clinton memo envisioned.

The story from The Interceptalso shows how the Clinton campaign plants surrogates in the media, often who are on the Family Team.

Other documents listed those whom the campaign regarded as their most reliable surrogates such as CNNs Hilary Rosen and Donna Brazile, as well as Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden but then also listed operatives whom they believed were either good progressive helpers or more potentially friendly media figureswho might beworth targeting with messaging. The metadata of the surrogate document shows the file was authored by Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director of the campaign. As The Intercept previously reported, pundits regularly featured on cable news programs were paid by the Clinton campaign without any disclosure when they appeared; several of them are included on this surrogates list, including Stephanie Cutter and Maria Cardona.

In March 2015, The New York Times reported that Bill Clinton was causing trouble for the campaign by speaking off-script. In response, John Harris, Politicos top editor, sent an email to Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton chief flack.

*From:* John Harris

*Date:* March 29, 2015 at 12:03:13 PM CDT

*To:* jennifer.m.palmieri@gmail.com *Cc:* tom@tfreedmanconsulting.com

*Subject:* *You should hire me for this*

WILL BILL GET A MINDER? NYT A1, Clinton Team Hopes to Keep Bill at His Best, by Patrick Healy and Amy Chozick: In hopes of collaborating with Mr. Clinton better than in 2008 advisers to Mrs. Clinton are involving him more closely in early campaign planning, and they are discussing whether to deploy a senior aide to travel with him to keep him focused on his wifes central message.

It is not clear if the email was a tongue-in-cheek joke by a journalist seeking to break news whenever Clinton went off-script, or insider ingratiation with Palmieri, or a coy request for a job. But Palmieri forwarded the email to Podesta, with her judgement of Harriss trustworthiness: Harris is volunteering. Seems sound.

Longtime Clinton ally Donna Brazile, then a CNN contributor but now acting head of the Democratic National Committee, appears to have emailed members of the Clinton campaign to tip them off about a question that would be asked at Clintons debate with Bernie Sanders.

In this case, the cover-up is also at least as bad as the crime.

From time to time I get the questions in advance, was the subject line of an alleged email in which Brazile gave Clintons campaign the heads up for a question on the death penalty.

In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, Brazile denied leaking questions, sayingI often shared my thoughts with each and every campaign, and any suggestions that indicate otherwise are completely untrue.

However, as Hadas Gold at Politico wrote:

The email obtained by POLITICO was written by town hall co-moderator Roland Martin on the day of the town hall to CNN producers. But it shows him using word for word the language of a question that Brazile appeared to have sent to the Clinton campaign a day earlier. That email, from Brazile to the campaign, was included in yesterdays release of hacked emails by Wikileaks of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta.

Heres what the record shows: On March 12, Brazile, then vice chair of the DNC and a CNN and ABC contributor, allegedly wrote an email with the subject line From time to time I get the questions in advance. It continues:

> Heres one that worries me about HRC.

> DEATH PENALTY

> 19 states and the District of Columbia have banned the death penalty. 31 states, including Ohio, still have the death penalty. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, since 1973, 156 people have been on death row and later set free. Since 1976, 1,414 people have been executed in the U.S. Thats 11% of Americans who were sentenced to die, but later exonerated and freed. Should Ohio and the 30 other states join the current list and abolish the death penalty?

Jennifer Palmieri, director of communications for the Clinton campaign, wrote back within three hours, seemingly not as worried:

Hi. Yes, it is one she gets asked about. Not everyone likes her answer but can share it.

She then instructs a copied employee to share the campaigns standard answer to the question to Brazile.

The next day, Roland Martin, a host on the TV One cable network who was co-hosting the town hall with CNNs Jake Tapper, sent an email to CNN producers with three questions, the third of which dealt with the death penalty. POLITICO obtained that email, and heres the text of the third question:

> DEATH PENALTY

> 19 states and the District of Columbia have banned the death penalty. 31 states, including Ohio, still have the death penalty. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, since 1973, 156 people have been on death row and later set free. Since 1976, 1,414 people have been executed in the U.S. Thats 11% of Americans who were sentenced to die, but later exonerated and freed. Should Ohio and the 30 other states join the current list and abolish the death penalty?

The wording, spacing, capitalization are identical.

CNNs Jake Tapper told Larry OConnor on his WMAL radio show Thursday morning that he believes the leak, including the word-for-word question, must have come from Martins camp, telling OConnor, My understanding is the email toDonna came from either Roland Martin or someone around Roland Martin. Tapper went on to say:

Its horrifying. Journalistically its horrifying and Im sure it will have an impact onpartnering with this organization in the future and Im sure it will have and effect on Donna Brazile is no longer with CNN because shes with the DNC right now, but Im sure it will have some impact on Donna Brazile.

One would hope it would have some impact, since the current DNC head appears to be telling a story that directly contradicts all available evidence.

Hours after Wikileaks dropped the material, Brazile issued a statement saying I never had access to questions and would never have shared them with the candidates if I did.

Roland Martin himself was more cagey, as Brian Stetler reports:

Martin did not deny sharing information with Brazile. Instead, when asked by CNNMoney, he said my questions were shared with my executive producer and several members of my TV One team.

When asked in a followup question if he would explicitly rule out any sharing of questions with Brazile, Martin did not respond.

The Wikileaks drop also shows that Hillary Clinton has a real fondness for CNN pool reporter Dan Merica.

The Daily Caller reported that Clintons director of Latino outreach Lorella Preali wrote to press secretary Nick Merrill on February 26, 2016 to describe a campaign trip to Georgia in the weeks leading up to the state primary.

Praeli described how Clintonaddressed the Democratic Caucus at the Statehouse.

Clinton did a short version of her stump that was very crisp, she explained. People loved it. There were no press in the room.

Praeli next described how the former secretary of state took many a selfie while wading through throngs of people, with more pouring over the balconies, and headed to Octane coffee shop for an OTR.

At the coffee shop, Dan Merica asked her if she was jealous that she didnt get Chris Christies endorsement, after he dropped out of the Republican primary.

She responded with a prolonged smile (you could see the gears turning), and then said, Dan, I really like you. I really, really like you, she continued. They are basically courting each other at this point.

Previous hacked emails showthis wasnt the Clinton campaigns soleinstance of targeting Merica.

Pritchard is the Op-Ed editor for Boston Globe and she appears to have gone above and beyond the call of duty, helpfully suggesting to th Clinton campaign when it could run to have maximum impact for Clinton.

In this email, Pritchard makes suggestions about the timing of an editorial;

Hi John,

Just wondering if we are still on for that piece. Brian said last week it

was ready and just needed approval. It would be good to get it in on

Tuesday, when she is in New Hampshire. That would give her big presence on

Tuesday with the piece and on Wednesday with the news story.

Please let me know.

Thanks,

Marjorie

Louise Mensch is the editor of Heat Street, Rupert Murdochs latest site, which is targeted at conservatives. Yet the Wikileaks drop shows Mensch is a fan of Hillary Clinton, so much so that she furtively tried to write campaign ads for Clinton.

As Breitbart News reported:

Mrs. Mensch runs the Rupert Murdoch-backed blog Heat Street, which claims to stand against identity politics and what it labels social justice warriors under the slogan no safe spaces.

However, its editor in chief, Mrs. Mensch, was caught writing a campaign advertisement script for the Democratic candidate a woman who has traded off identity politics and social justice warrior politics. The ad appears to be based on the idea that Mrs. Clinton should be in office simply because she is female and is supported by multiracial women.

much rather have your girl Hillary, Mrs. Mensch wrote in an email to Michael Kives of Creative Arts Agency (CAA), a former Clinton campaign advocate.

The email reads:

Subject: Hillary ad

Dear Michael, As you will know from Arnold I am a committed Republican (or would be if I had the vote this year). But I worry no end about Donald Trump becoming our President much rather have your girl Hillary.

Anyway, the politician in me thinks Lena Dunham and Gloria Steinem are nails on a chalkboard to the average American woman AND I think Hillary is not capitalizing on the yearning that we have to see a woman as President properly.

Her competence and intelligence are beyond doubt, her problem is warmth.

If I may, here is an ad I would love to see run;

OUR TIME

A succession of mostly young women, a few old women, one with a baby daughter, multiracial and multi-occupation, to include a nurse and a woman in uniform of some kind where permitted

one after the other, smiling and looking to camera and saying Its our time.

and the last woman says, Its our time. Im with her.

fade to banner credit Hillary 2016

-

That would be inspirational, aspirational, and the kind of riff you really need on Yes we can.

Best, Louise

HeatStreet cant claim to be above using Wikileaks a a source, since it has done cover stories based on the Wikileaks release.

Finally, in the names of balance its important to note that its not all wine and roses for Podesta and the media, as another email shows that Podesta and other members of the team express frustration about Clinton advisor and journalist Sidney Blumenthal.

Go here to see the original:
Wikileaks Reveals Long List of Media Canoodling with Hillary ...

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] Today, more recent leaks have surpassed that amount.

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 3,000 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 December 2, 2010, Tableau Software withdraw its visualizations from the contents of the leak, stating that it was directly due to political pressure from Joe Lieberman.[86][87]

On 4 December, Paypal cut off the account used by WikiLeaks to collect donations.[88]

On 6 December, the Swiss bank PostFinance announced that it had frozen the assets of Assange;[89] on the same day, MasterCard stopped payments to WikiLeaks,[90] with Visa following them on 7 December.[91]

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,[92] 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."[93] According to a 3 December 2010 article in The Guardian,[94] 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".[95] 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."[96]

The New York Times reported on 14 December[97] 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.[98] 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.[99]

The websites of the government of Zimbabwe were targeted by Anonymous with DDoS attacks due to censorship of the WikiLeaks documents.[100] The websites of the government of Tunisia were targeted by Anonymous due to censorship of the WikiLeaks documents and the Tunisian revolution.[100] Tunisians were reported to be assisting in these denial-of-service attacks launched by Anonymous.[101] 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.[102] Anonymous released an online message denouncing the government clampdown on recent protests and posted it on the Tunisian government website.[103] Anonymous has named their attacks as "Operation Tunisia".[104] 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.[105]

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."[106] 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.[106]

Later, The News International admitted the story "was dubious and may have been planted", and The Express Tribune offered "profuse" apologies to readers.[107]Urdu-language papers such as the Daily Jang, however, declined to retract the story.[107]

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."[108] 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.[109]

Elected representatives of Iceland have declared such actions by the U.S. government "serious", "peculiar", "outlandish", and akin to heavy breathing on the telephone.[110] 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".[111] As of 10 January 2011, there were 636,759 followers of the WikiLeaks Twitter feed with destination email addresses and IP addresses.[112][113]

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."[114] 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."[115][116][117]

It is widely believed that the Tunisian revolution then spread to other parts of the Middle East, turning into the Arab Spring.[118]

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United States diplomatic cables leak - Wikipedia