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| "The United States targets Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Washington says the publication of more than 250,000 documents is dangerous, and calls the perpetrators criminals." |
The 251,287 confidential United States embassy cables started leaking out on Sunday, November 28.
On Tuesday, November 30, we caught Secretary of State Hillary Clinton live on TV expressing America's deep regrets about the Wikileaked documents at the same time reassuring American allies. "I want to make it clear," she stressed, "that our foreign policy is not set through these messages, but here in Washington.
Curiosity led us to Secret US Embassy Cables at http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/ the next day but we could not get to the documents anymore. We were still able to read the explanatory notes on the cables though, and look at the the map and bar graph showing the various American embassy sources. "The full set consists of 251,287 documents," it said, "comprising 261,276,536 words (seven times the size of "The Iraq War Logs", the world's previously largest classified information release) ...the cables cover from 28th December 1966 to 28th February 2010 and originate from 274 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions."
We also noted that 15, 652 of these memos are "secret",101,748 "confidential" and 133,887 "unclassified"; Iraq was the "most discussed country" with 15,365 cables, 6,677 came from there; "Ankara, Turkey had the most cables coming from it--7,918"; and 8,017 cables came from the office of the Secretary of State.
One more thing whetted our appetite to look for the leaks--The Philippine Star headlined on the same day that the Wikileaks include "1,796 US memos from [the US embassy in] Manila." It learned from the Guardian of UK that 982 of these cables are "unclassified", 749 "classified" and 65 "secret", and "all but two of [these] were sent between January 2005 and February 2010, [with] the two ... dated Nov. 21, 2001 and July 19, 1994." It appears that most of the information flow happened during the reign of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Until today, President Noynoy Aquino has yet to receive a call from Clinton although nothing yet of the Philippine cables have hit the remaining open online Wikileaks sources--The New York Times, Guardian of the UK, Der Spiegel of Germany, Le Monde of France and El Pais of Spain--after Amazon.com shut down its host services. It has been reported that Wikileaks has moved its site to Switzerland.
We've seen the summary reports on the cables that have been released so far at the New York Times and Buenos Aires Herald. The one we read with utmost delight at Spiegel Online is the confidential dispatch of 31 August 2006 with an intriguing title: "The US Ambassador Learns that Cognac Is Like Wine." about "high society wedding in the Caucasus -- complete with massive quantities of alcohol, lumps of gold and revolver-wielding drunkards." It's very well-written like an essay in one's favorite magazine coming in four parts, and these are just excerpts.
The latest releases (05 December) in Spiegel Online include the following:
Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is thought of as constantly moving. However, it has been reported by a British newspaper,The Independent, that the whistle blower arrived in Britain in October, the police know of his whereabouts but they have yet to serve the international warrant for his arrest. The Interpol has issued a 'red notice' for his arrest because he is wanted in Sweden on suspicion of sexual crimes allegedly committed there earlier this year.
The fall-out has caused US President Barack Obama to create a special committee called the Interagency Policy Committee for WikiLeaks that will try to block any other leaks in the future through intelligence agency coordination within the country.
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| Just a kid? |
Curiosity led us to Secret US Embassy Cables at http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/ the next day but we could not get to the documents anymore. We were still able to read the explanatory notes on the cables though, and look at the the map and bar graph showing the various American embassy sources. "The full set consists of 251,287 documents," it said, "comprising 261,276,536 words (seven times the size of "The Iraq War Logs", the world's previously largest classified information release) ...the cables cover from 28th December 1966 to 28th February 2010 and originate from 274 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions."
We also noted that 15, 652 of these memos are "secret",101,748 "confidential" and 133,887 "unclassified"; Iraq was the "most discussed country" with 15,365 cables, 6,677 came from there; "Ankara, Turkey had the most cables coming from it--7,918"; and 8,017 cables came from the office of the Secretary of State.
One more thing whetted our appetite to look for the leaks--The Philippine Star headlined on the same day that the Wikileaks include "1,796 US memos from [the US embassy in] Manila." It learned from the Guardian of UK that 982 of these cables are "unclassified", 749 "classified" and 65 "secret", and "all but two of [these] were sent between January 2005 and February 2010, [with] the two ... dated Nov. 21, 2001 and July 19, 1994." It appears that most of the information flow happened during the reign of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Until today, President Noynoy Aquino has yet to receive a call from Clinton although nothing yet of the Philippine cables have hit the remaining open online Wikileaks sources--The New York Times, Guardian of the UK, Der Spiegel of Germany, Le Monde of France and El Pais of Spain--after Amazon.com shut down its host services. It has been reported that Wikileaks has moved its site to Switzerland.
We've seen the summary reports on the cables that have been released so far at the New York Times and Buenos Aires Herald. The one we read with utmost delight at Spiegel Online is the confidential dispatch of 31 August 2006 with an intriguing title: "The US Ambassador Learns that Cognac Is Like Wine." about "high society wedding in the Caucasus -- complete with massive quantities of alcohol, lumps of gold and revolver-wielding drunkards." It's very well-written like an essay in one's favorite magazine coming in four parts, and these are just excerpts. The latest releases (05 December) in Spiegel Online include the following:
- At Sea in the Desert/ US Diplomats Bewildered and Bamboozled in Baghdad
- 'Redder than Red'/ An American Portrait of China's Next Leader
- US Dispatches from Beijing/ 'True Democracy' Within China's Politburo?
Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is thought of as constantly moving. However, it has been reported by a British newspaper,The Independent, that the whistle blower arrived in Britain in October, the police know of his whereabouts but they have yet to serve the international warrant for his arrest. The Interpol has issued a 'red notice' for his arrest because he is wanted in Sweden on suspicion of sexual crimes allegedly committed there earlier this year.The fall-out has caused US President Barack Obama to create a special committee called the Interagency Policy Committee for WikiLeaks that will try to block any other leaks in the future through intelligence agency coordination within the country.
We have yet to see the US file federal charges against Wikileaks. Is cablegate a sound argument for honest journalism?
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