Wikileaks Releases Secret US Diplomatic Files

Julian Assange and his team have released yet more explosive stuff, mostly about US ‘activities’, some of which seem to be patently illegal. Here are some pickings from the initial reports by the Guardian, NYT and Der Spiegel.

– Embassies Part of Espionage Network: US ordered embassies to spy on local politicians and businessmen including allies. Information obtained not just through meetings but included personal details such as frequent flyer numbers, credit card details, iris scans, DNA material and fingerprints.

– Iran Attack: Arab leaders from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan strongly pushed the US to attack Iran. Egypt and UAE called Iran an “evil” and “an existential threat”.

– US Spies On UN: US officials instructed to spy on UN leadership including the Secretary General. Directive requested specification of telecoms and IT systems used by top officials and their staff and details of “private VIP networks used for official communication, to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys”.

– Intelligence on UK MPs: US requested UK government for intelligence on specific MPs.

– Pakistanis Nukes: US wanted to remove highly enriched uranium from a Pakistani research reactor but the military declined to let the American technical experts in.

– ‘Evaluation’ of World Leaders: Putin was called an “alpha-dog”, Hamid Karzai was “driven by paranoia”, Angela Merkel allegedly “avoids risk and is rarely creative” and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was compared to Adolf Hitler.

You can get much more at the Guardian, NYT and Der Spiegel.

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Some useful links

– NewYorker’s profile of Julian Assange

– Julian Assange explains why the world needs Wikileaks at TED

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