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Wikileaks website attacked; millions of files to be released tonight

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Sunday, November 28, 2010

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The material that we are about to release covers essentially every major issue in every country in the world.

—Julian Assange, Wikileaks founder

Wikileaks' website is reportedly under attack as it prepares to release up to 2.7 million documents, described as "diplomatic dynamite", detailing communication between United States embassies. "We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack," the organisation said on its Twitter feed. The website, run by Julian Assange, retaliated by saying that even if their website goes down, several newspapers will publish the leaked files this evening.

The Obama administration wrote to Assange yesterday to warn him that "countless" lives would be put at risk should the documents be published. "We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained US government classified materials," the letter stated. Wikinews reported on Saturday that officials in Washington were contacting embassies around the world to warn diplomats of the leak.

Assange told reporters on Sunday: "The material that we are about to release covers essentially every major issue in every country in the world." Wikileaks confirmed that El Pais, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and The New York Times will be publishing the documents this evening. "The greatest anxiety is that these leaks will reveal remarks [by U.S. diplomats] of a hostile nature towards various Islamic leaders and Islamic state policies," political analyst Peter Spencer said. Analysts have said that the letter to Obama reflects the U.S. administration's concern over possible publication of the files, which may contain American diplomats' opinions of other politicians, some of which may be candid and embarrassing.


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This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
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