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<font size=4><b>Pentagon demands Wikileaks files
</font><font size=4 color="#FF0000">(2 articles follow)<br><br>
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<a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/08/2010851940060127.html" eudora="autourl">
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/08/2010851940060127.html<br>
</a>Friday, August 06, 2010<br><br>
The Pentagon has demanded that the whistle-blower website Wikileaks hand
over all classified US military documents it has not yet published and
remove existing material posted online.<br><br>
Wikileaks is in possession of about 15,000 secret papers relating to the
war in Afghanistan which it did not publish to protect those mentioned in
the documents. <br><br>
"We are asking them to do the right thing," said Geoff Morrell,
a Pentagon spokesman, as he made a public request for WikiLeaks to hand
over the US documents and delete material it had put on the
Internet.<br><br>
"We hope they will honor our demands," he said, adding that the
US government was the rightful owner of all the classified material in
WikiLeaks' possession.<br><br>
Wikileaks sparked controversy last month when it published more than
70,000 military documents relating to the war that revealed an
unvarnished, and at times disturbing picture of the conflict.<br><br>
The Pentagon said that the leak - the largest in military history- had
put US troops and Afghan informers in danger. Morrell warned that more
publications would cause further damage.<br><br>
<b>Task Force<br><br>
</b>A Pentagon task force of around 80 people is combing through the
materials already posted on the website and flagging up documents deemed
to pose a risk. Morrell said that foreign governments were being notified
of dangerous material.<br><br>
The analysts have already carried out about 400 initial 'word searches'
of the leaked documents and are continuing to work around the clock to
carry out a more detailed study of what exactly has found its way into
the public domain.<br><br>
The Pentagon has some idea of the material that Wikileaks is holding back
and is working to pre-empt the possible release of the documents, Morrell
said.<br><br>
Morrell refused to comment on potential legal action against Wikileaks,
saying it was a matter for the FBI and US justice department to decide
how to proceed.<br><br>
But he said that the website was responsible for "brazen
solicitation to US government officials, including our military, to break
the law."<br><br>
"WikiLeaks' assertion that submitting confidential material to
WikiLeaks is safe, easy and protected by law is materially false and
misleading'' he said.<br><br>
The US investigation into the leaks is focused on Bradley Manning, an
army intelligence analyst in Iraq who has already been charged with
leaking a classified video showing a 2007 helicopter attack that left 12
people, including two Reuters journalists, dead in Baghdad.
<br><br>
Meanwhile, Wikileaks has posted a huge encrypted file named
"Insurance" to its website, sparking speculation that the
organisation may be threatening to publish more classified information if
its staff are detained or the website is attacked. <br>
******************************************************<br>
</font><font size=4><b>WikiLeaks posts huge encrypted file to
Web<br><br>
</b></font><font size=3>By RAPHAEL G. SATTER <br>
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<a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gKu1DQoewmBy2do5ctRqUX5efGBAD9HDFADG0" eudora="autourl">
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gKu1DQoewmBy2do5ctRqUX5efGBAD9HDFADG0<br>
<br>
</a></font><font size=3>LONDON Online whistle-blower WikiLeaks has
posted a huge encrypted file named "Insurance" to its website,
sparking speculation that those behind the organization may be prepared
to release more classified information if authorities interfere with
them.<br><br>
Bloggers have noted that it's 20 times larger than the batch of 77,000
secret U.S. military documents about Afghanistan that WikiLeaks dumped
onto the Web last month. Contributors to tech sites such as CNet have
speculated that the file could be a way of threatening to disclose more
information if WikiLeaks' staffers were detained or if the site was
attacked, although the organization itself has kept mum.<br><br>
"As a matter of policy, we do not discuss security procedures,"
WikiLeaks said Thursday in an e-mail response to questions about the 1.4
gigabyte file.<br><br>
Editor-in-chief Julian Assange was a bit more expansive if equally
cryptic in his response to the same line of questioning in a television
interview with independent U.S. news network Democracy Now!<br><br>
"I think it's better that we don't comment on that," Assange
said, according to the network's transcript of the interview. "But,
you know, one could imagine in a similar situation that it might be worth
ensuring that important parts of history do not disappear."<br><br>
Assange, a former computer hacker, has expressed concern over his safety
in the past, complaining of surveillance and telling interviewers that
he's been warned away from visiting the United States.<br><br>
Since the publication of the Afghanistan files, at least one activist
associated with the site has been questioned by U.S. authorities.
Programmer Jacob Appelbaum, who filled in for Assange at a conference
last month, was reportedly detained and questioned about the site by
officials after arriving in the U.S. on a flight from the
Netherlands.<br><br>
U.S. officials have had harsh words for Assange, with Adm. Michael
Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying he and his
colleagues had disclosed potentially life-threatening information and
might already have blood on their hands.<br><br>
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has refused to rule out the
possibility that Assange could be a target into the military's
investigation into the leak.<br><br>
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