Wikileaks weekly news round-up

The US Army spies on soldier and military families’ blogs, according to a document released by Wikileaks on Thursday. But the document was also released by Wired News last May, so Wikileaks removed it from their site. (According to Wikileaks’ document submission guidelines, the site releases only fresh leaks, so if they make a mistake, they redirect credit to the original leakers.)

The battle between Scientology and Wikileaks escalated as Wikileaks released 18 more documents about the Church, revealing Scientology’s organizational structure and 2005 and 2006 UK tax returns.

Wikileaks also published an analysis of how Britain got the atomic bomb, and then forwarded to its listserve an email conversation between Wikileaks spokesman Jay Lim and Isabella McRae of the UK government’s Counter-Proliferation Department.

On March 19, McRae wrote:

Dear Wikileaks,

We have recently been alerted to the fact that you have put censored nuclear bomb designs on your website. Grateful if you could remove these as soon as possible, as I hope you agree that some censorship at least is in the public good. These designs could aid countries wishing to develop nuclear weapons, hence the desire to keep them out of the public domain. The page I am specifically referring to is: <http://wikileaks.org/wiki/First_atomic_bomb_diagram>

Please let me know if you agree with me, and if you have decided to remove them.

(The referenced document is here.)

Lim’s response:

We take your concerns seriously.

However, the editors and a number of nuclear physicists are of the opinion, which is outlined in the article summary, that our release of the material will not contribute to the the proliferation of nuclear weapons. If our argument is in error we would be happy to be corrected by a detailed response.

The email exchange continued throughout the day on March 19, but ended without resolution, partly because the office responsible for explaining the issue to Wikileaks went on Easter break. As of April 8, the UK had yet to clarify their concerns enough for Wikileaks to take them seriously.

I can’t find the entire correspondence anywhere online, but Wikileaks’ letter to the press and Isabella McRae’s first letter are published here.

Tags: atomic bomb, Britain, confidentiality, Scientology, US Army, wikileaks