Post date: Nov 28, 2010 5:11:56 PM
The U.S. State Department tells whistleblowing website WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a letter that the expected release of classified U.S. documents would endanger countless lives, jeopardize American military operations and hurt international cooperation on global security issues.
LONDON, ENGLAND, UK REUTERS - The State Department has warned the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks that its expected release of classified U.S. documents would endanger countless lives, jeopardize American military operations and hurt international cooperation on global security issues.
The department's top lawyer urged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a letter on Saturday (November 27) to keep classified documents off the website, remove records of them from its database and return any material to the U.S. government.Lawyer Harold Koh said the department has learned that WikiLeaks provided 250,000 documents to The New York Times, The Guardian of Britain and German magazine Der Spiegel.
Some media reported the news outlets may post stories on the documents as early as Sunday (November 28) and said they have also been given to newspapers Le Monde in France and El Pais in Spain.
The U.S. government, which was informed in advance of the contents, has contacted governments around the world, including in Russia, Europe and the Middle East, to try to limit any damage.
Sources familiar with the documents say they include corruption allegations against foreign leaders and governments.
Koh wrote that publication of the documents would "place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals" as well as military initiatives and cooperation between countries to confront problems from terrorism to pandemic disease.
The lawyer also rejected what he said was Assange's request for more information about individuals who might be at risk from publication of the documents.
"We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained U.S. Government classified materials," Koh wrote in the letter.
Past releases by WikiLeaks, founded by Assange, an Australian-born computer hacker, contained sensitive information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which the United States had said compromised national security and put some people at risk.
The fallout of the latest publication has already been anticipated.
U.S. Ambassador to Germany Philip Murphy wrote a letter to the German Sunday weekly "Bild am Sonntag" that the WikiLeaks revelations would be an embarrassment.
"Regrettably we will soon have something new to see: alleged confidential diplomatic messages from U.S. embassies around the world, including mine. It's hard to say what effect it will have, but it will at the very least be uncomfortable -- for my government, for those mentioned in the reports, and for me personally as American Ambassador to Germany," Murphy wrote in the letter.