Classified Information, U.s. Diplomatic Cables | featured news

The U.S. government on Friday announced steps to clamp down on who can access classified information, seeking to avert another WikiLeaks-scale breach of military documents and diplomatic cables.

The founder of WikiLeaks said Friday he fears the United States is preparing to indict him, but insisted that the government secret-spilling site would continue its work despite what he calls a dirty tricks campaign against him....

The predominant consensus in official Washington that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should eventually stand trial here on espionage charges is not likely to change anytime soon. But three influential voices are now saying publicly what many others say privately: that blame should be focused on leakers, not Assange, who after all was merely the middleman for the handful of newspapers and magazines that were given first crack at classified military and diplomatic documents.

In the wake of WikiLeaks' release of more than 250000 classified US diplomatic cables, the Pentagon is reportedly taking measures to prevent this type of breach from happening again.

American officials say that millions of dollars are flowing to extremist groups worldwide, and that some Middle East allies are not helping to stop it.

Wikileaks struggled to stay online Friday as corporations and governments moved to cut its access to the Internet, a potentially crippling blow for an organization dedicated to releasing secret information via the web....

White House officials said President Barack Obama's national security staff had created an interagency panel to coordinate the response to the leaks and come up with new ways to keep classified documents secret.