WikiLeaks blames Guardian journalist for release of 251K unredacted U.S. cables

WikiLeaks blames Guardian journalist for release of 251K unredacted U.S. cables

WikiLeaks on Thursday blamed a journalist from the British newspaper The Guardian for the release of hundreds of thousands of unredacted U.S. State Department documents.

WikiLeaks has been redacting portions of the diplomatic cables to protect human rights activists and others, and releasing the documents in assorted batches since November 2010.

But a 1.73-GB password-protected file named "cables.csv," which contains all cables in their unredacted forms, has been circulating on the Internet.

The German newspaper Der Freitag said last week that it had found the file and easily obtained the password to unlock it.

WikiLeaks accused Guardian's investigative reporter David Leigh of "recklessly" giving the password to another Guardian journalist, Luke Harding, who published it in a book earlier this year.

"David Leigh and the Guardian have subsequently and repeatedly violated WikiLeaks security conditions, including our requirements that the unpublished cables be kept safe from state intelligence services by keeping them only on computers not connected to the Internet."