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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at the Geneva Press Club on November 4, in Geneva. Wikileaks is poised to release yet another trove of secret U.S. documents that is seven times larger than the Iraq War Logs. (Fabrice Coffrini/Getty Images)
Wikileaks is poised to release yet another trove of secret U.S. documents that is seven times larger than the Iraq War Logs—currently the largest leak of secret U.S. military documents in history—the whistle-blower organization announced on Twitter.
“The coming months will see a new world, where global history is redefined,” Wikileaks stated in a Nov. 21 Twitter post.
Although it is still uncertain what the leak will contain, “It is our expectation—we’ve known all along that WikiLeaks has in its possession State Department cables,” said Department of State (DOS) Assistant Secretary Philip J. Crowley in Wednesday’s press briefing.
He added that the Pentagon notified Congress this week, and has begun notifying governments of the possible release of the documents “in the near future.”
The DOS cables contain classified discussions between the Pentagon, government officials, and private citizens. “They contain analysis,” Crowley said. “They contain a record of the day-to-day diplomatic activity that our personnel undertake. And this back and forth between government, the government of the United States and governments around the world, it is diplomacy in action.”
The files could contain government perspectives on events. Crowley said since the wires are classified, governments communicating over them have the “confidence and that they can convey their perspective on events to us,” and the process helps spur “the policies that we undertake on behalf of the American people.”
There is concern that leaking such information would betray the confidence of the individuals who provided it to the government; that their words would remain confidential.
In reference to the pending leak, Crowley said, “They are going to create tension in our relationships between our diplomats and our friends around the world. We wish that this would not happen. But we are, obviously, prepared for the possibility that it will.”
The contents of the pending release were also brought up during a Nov. 4 DOS press briefing, where an unnamed reporter speculated that the documents could be regarding the United Nations, rather than the United States.
It is suspected that the release is the massive, 1.4 GB file posted to Wikileaks in August. The file, titled “Insurance,” was locked with encryption, with a note to “Keep it safe.”
The contents of the Insurance file are still unknown. It is, however, 18 times the size of the 75 MB Afghan War Diary that currently contains 76,908 classified military documents. The Iraq War Logs contained 391,832 documents and is around 354 MB.
