WikiLeaks Publishes Tens of Thousands More Cables

Still under heavy scrutiny from US government, WikiLeaks is exercizing press freedoms

The WikiLeaks organization said Thursday it would release another round of tens of thousands of previously unpublished U.S. diplomatic cables, some of which are still classified. The releases are a continuation of the more than 250,000 State Department reports leaked to the group which started being released late last year.

“We will have released over 100,000 US embassy cables from around the world by the end of today,” said a message on WikiLeaks’ Twitter feed, believed to be controlled by Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder and chief.

The mass release this time around is contrasted with the method of past months in which WikiLeaks would release smaller batches. The change is believed come from frustration of WikiLeaks and its supporters that the media organizations they have cooperated with in the past had failed to commit to publishing and publicizing stories based on the cables.

The document release began just hours after further harassment by the US government and federal prosecutors looking into WikiLeaks, trying to hinder the organization’s operations despite having no real legal case against them. Previous attempts to charge WikiLeaks under the Espionage Act have not been borne out, and would fly in the face of first amendment press freedoms if pursued.

Author: John Glaser

John Glaser writes for Antiwar.com.