Newly Released Wikileaks Documents Highlight US Foreign Diplomacy.

Posted by Alexandru Nicolae

  I know we normally write about upcoming developments in the scientific world, but I had to take a bit of time to talk about something that's taking the journalistic world by storm today. 

Wikileaks has recently released some MORE secret documents, this time on the United States' foreign relations and diplomacy with both their enemies and their allies. The documents discuss topics on everything from spy networks in foreign embassies to opinions on political leaders.

Here's the description from the website itself, which earlier today experienced a distributed denial of service attack from hackers:

The cables, which date from 1966 up until the end of February this year, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington DC. 15,652 of the cables are classified Secret.

The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.

The cables show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in "client states"; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them...

Unfortunately, I can't provide a link to the site because the website is being banned in some countries. But a quick google search should do the trick if you're really curious.Or better yet, you can read about it at various media outlets below.

It seems to be quite damaging this time around and a huge public relations nightmare for the US government. I'm all for freedom of information, some atrocities need to be smoked out and exposed if we are to become a better society, but this may have taken it a bit too far. We'll have to wait and see the world's reaction to this. I'll be waiting and browsing Twitter for the next few days to see what happens. Hopefully the world doesn't erupt into a fireball because of it all. But I'm also wondering if an information leak of this magnitude can even be contained. I doubt it.

Read more of this story at:

New York Times
BBC