Former supporters of Assange and Wikileaks have condemned the recent leak of unredacted US diplomatic cables giving details of sensitive government installations and identifying activists and whistleblowers, including those who could be placed in danger:
The Guardian, New York Times, El País, Der Spiegel and Le Monde, who worked with WikiLeaks publishing carefully selected and redacted documents in December last year, issued a joint statement condemning the latest release.
“We deplore the decision of WikiLeaks to publish the unredacted state department cables, which may put sources at risk,” it said.
“Our previous dealings with WikiLeaks were on the clear basis that we would only publish cables which had been subjected to a thorough joint editing and clearance process. We will continue to defend our previous collaborative publishing endeavour. We cannot defend the needless publication of the complete data – indeed, we are united in condemning it.
There was a striking piece in yesterday’s Guardian by James Ball, who spent some time as a staffer for Wikileaks. Although initially a supporter, he was quickly disillusioned.
Dismay mounted, however, with the arrival of Israel Shamir, a self-styled Russian “peace campaigner” with a long history of antisemitic writing. Shamir was introduced to the team under the pseudonym Adam, and it was only several weeks after he had left – with a huge cache of unredacted cables – that most of us started to find out who he was.
Press enquiries started to trickle in. A little research revealed his unsavoury history, but I was told Julian would be unwilling for WikiLeaks to publish anything critical of Shamir. Instead, shamefully, we put out a statement simply distancing WikiLeaks from him.
The article is well worth reading in full.
Hat tip: Gabriel in the comments
