The Publication of the Unredacted Manning Leaks

5. August 2024 (Artikel) (short link)

Author: Janine Römer, 14-Jul-2024, License: CC0 1.0 (public domain)

Beginning in November 2010, WikiLeaks and its international media partners – including the New York Times [1], the Guardian [2], Der Spiegel [3], Le Monde [4], and El País [5] – published documents about U.S. foreign policy and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, allegedly leaked by whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

As Mr. Assange wrote [6] to U.S. Ambassador Louis B. Susman, these documents had been through an extensive and innovative redaction & harm-reduction process prior to publication. On the details of that process, we particularly refer to the defense’s skeleton argument [7] from August 2020, as well as the 2020 supporting court testimonies [8] of investigative journalists John Goetz [9], Nicky Hager [10], and Andy Worthington [11], and Iraq Body Count co-founder John Sloboda [12]. Former media partner Stefania Maurizi [13] also documented it in her book “Secret Power” (2022).

Then how did the unredacted leaks end up being published?

In response to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks against WikiLeaks’ infrastructure in retaliation for its publications, supporters sought to protect the availability of their valuable information by distributing & mirroring copies at various places online. This included an encrypted copy of the unredacted cable set. Encrypted data cannot be read unless one has the decryption key / passphrase, which must be kept confidential. During the 2020 extradition trial, Professor Christian Grothoff analysed the technical nature of these events as an expert witness [14][15].

In February 2011, Guardian journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding published a book [16], which contained the decryption passphrase for the unredacted cable set as a chapter title. The book did not specify how or where to use the passphrase.

On 25 August, Steffen Kraft at Der Freitag published an article [17] that pointed to the filename of the unredacted cables, and the passphrase being disclosed. The article and the court testimony of then editor-in-chief Jakob Augstein [18] confirm that Mr. Assange had called Mr. Augstein to dissuade them from publishing this.

On 26 August, Mr. Assange and then editor Sarah Harrison called the U.S. State Department via official channels [19] and warned them that the entire unredacted set of cables was, or would soon be, accessible to anyone online (“not by us”). When the dispatcher was unwilling / unable to connect them with Secretary Clinton or someone else in a position of authority to act, Ms. Harrison replied, “I don’t understand why you’re not seeing the urgency in this.” A portion of this call was featured towards the beginning of the 2016/2017 film “Risk,” directed by Laura Poitras. A transcript and audio file of the entire call has also been published by the Assange defence [20].

On 31 August, journalist Nigel Parry also published a blog post21 about the Freitag piece, with more detail. John Young of Cryptome [22] subsequently published a copy of the now-decrypted unredacted cables on 1 September 2011.

The defence skeleton argument (pg. 56) states:

The US government knows well (but has withheld from this Court) that the release of un-redacted materials on 1 September 2011 was done by others and came about as a result of ‘a series of unforeseeable events’ [Goetz, tab 31, §30-32] outside of the control of Mr Assange or indeed WikiLeaks, and despite Mr Assange’s ‘strong attempts to prevent’ it [Goetz, tab 31, §31].

Investigative journalist Michael Sontheimer wrote for Heise [23] that “the claim that Assange and WikiLeaks shovelled huge quantities of secret documents online without hesitation and without checking them.. is false.”

Why did WikiLeaks still publish the unredacted documents anyway?

Unable to prevent the publication of the unredacted cable set by third parties, WikiLeaks then did release it themselves as part of their searchable archives, on or around 2 September 2011. There was/is disagreement and criticism of this decision [24][25] among their media partners, but Mr. Assange clearly and publicly explained their reasons 26 at the time, mainly:

data integrity – to offer an “authorised” or authentic copy, in the event that the copies published by others had been tampered with in some way;
harm minimisation – to make it easier for people to discover whether they had been mentioned in the material and then act accordingly.

On the second point, it should be further noted that U.S. government officials have repeatedly asserted a ‘significant risk of harm,’ but in fact never proven any actual harm occurred. The superceding indictment [27] from May 2019 claims there was “serious risk that unauthorized disclosure could harm the national security of the United States.” However, back in January 2011, Reuters [28][29] reported that internal reviews of the impact of the leaks found damage to U.S. interests to be “limited” and “containable,” rather “embarrassing but not damaging.” The U.S. prosecution did not or could not offer a single proven example either during the court martial of Chelsea Manning [30] or the 2020 extradition trial [31]. We particularly refer to the declaration [32] from Professor Mark Feldstein (see pages 11-25).

Notably, former director of U.S. national intelligence (DNI) James Clapper has told CNN that he does “not recall any direct proof” that anyone was harmed [33]. U.S. District Court Judge Ramona Manglona, who presided over the concluding hearing (26 June 2024) in Saipan, reportedly [34] said: “There’s another significant fact – the government has indicated there is no personal victim here. That tells me the dissemination of this information did not result in any known physical injury.” Indeed, the plea agreement [35] states: “As of the date of the Plea Agreement, the United States has not identified any victim qualifying for individual restitution and, thus, is not requesting an order of restitution.”

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29cables.html

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cable-leak-diplomacy-crisis

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20101129222728/http://www.spiegel.de/international/

[4] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/11/28/publishing-isn-t-a-crime-media-outlets-call-to-end-julian-assange-prosecution-for-disclosing-secrets_6005846_4.html

[5] https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2010/12/23/inenglish/1293085243_850210.html

[6] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/documents/letters-between-wikileaks-and-gov

[7] https://bridgesforfreedom.media/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/200825Julian_Assange_Defence_Skeleton_Argument__part_2.pdf

[8] https://assangedefense.org/hearing-coverage/wikileaks-redaction-process-and-the-unredacted-cables/

[9] https://web.archive.org/web/20210803131828/https://www.tareqhaddad.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/2020.09.16-Assange-Extradition-Hearings-Statement-of-John-Goetz.pdf

[10] https://web.archive.org/web/20210803131828/https://www.tareqhaddad.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/2020.09.18-Assange-Extradition-Hearings-Statement-of-Nicky-Hager.pdf

[11] https://web.archive.org/web/20210803062246/https://www.tareqhaddad.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/2020.09.18-Assange-Extradition-Hearings-Statement-of-Andy-Worthington.pdf

[12] https://web.archive.org/web/20210803131828/https://www.tareqhaddad.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/2020.09.17-Assange-Extradition-Hearings-Statement-of-John-Slodoba.pdf