Israel Matzav: No leak at Wikileaks?

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

No leak at Wikileaks?

German reports indicate that the password to an encrypted file with the names of hundreds of informants - including Mossad agents - who are the sources for Wikileaks' documents, has been circulating around the internet for several months now.

According to the report, an encrypted file has been circulating on the Internet since the beginning of the year which contains the full collection of some 250,000 US State Department cables obtained by the whistle-blower organization last year. WikiLeaks began making select cables from the collection public in November 2010, but had been editing them to protect sources. The file floating around on the Internet containing all 250,000 cables, however, is entirely unedited, according to the report.

The password-protected file had been hidden on a WikiLeaks server. Assange had given the password to an external contact, according to Der Spiegel. WikiLeaks supporters, attempting to create a public archive of cables which had already been released through various news outlets, unwittingly released the hidden, encrypted file as well. In the spring of 2011, Assange's external contact made the password to the file public.

Domscheit-Berg's rival organization OpenLeaks has now drawn attention to the fact that both the file and the password have been available on the Internet for months. Domscheit-Berg's OpenLeaks colleagues said the slip-up proved his contention that data in the hands of WikiLeaks was not secure.

WikiLeaks denied the report by way of its Twitter account, saying, "There has been no 'leak at WikiLeaks'. The issue relates to a mainstream media partner and a malicious individual,” in reference to Domscheit-Berg.

If Domscheit-Berg is circulating the names, isn't that the same thing? The consequences are the same: Hundreds of confidential State Department sources have been compromised. Would you want to talk to the State Department off the record again?

Suppose you were one of these two ladies.

The new batch of hundreds of diplomatic cables sent out from the US embassy in Tel Aviv published on the WikiLeaks website last week includes one from January 20, 2005, with the subject title: “Snapshot of a West Bank Amcit [American citizen] Settler,” and another a couple weeks later, on February 10, entitled, “Another West Bank Amcit Settler’s account.”

The first relates to a US consular officer’s conversation with a 36-year-old American citizen who went to report the birth of her “American citizen child” at the embassy. The woman, unnamed, immigrated to Israel at the age of 20, married an Israeli Technion graduate who works in Tel Aviv, and lives in Neve Tsuf.

“As a resident of the West Bank she is technically within the consular district of the US Consulate in Jerusalem,” the cable read. “However she said that she did not wish to travel through east Jerusalem streets ‘surrounded by Arabs’ to get to the Consulate. She would go there only if accompanied by her husband, who is usually armed.

“When asked why, if she fears east Jerusalem, she is willing to live in a settlement in the heart of the West Bank, she said that she thinks of Neve Tsuf as a suburb of Tel Aviv. She feels secure at home and is comforted by the presence of Israeli soldiers in her settlement and on the roads. She does not feel that she is in any more danger in Neve Tsuf than she would be in Tel Aviv.”

The cable said the woman “considers herself religious and cited ideological reasons, not financial incentives, for moving to Neve Tsuf. She believes that the God-given land of Israel includes the West Bank.

However, she also cites practical reasons for wanting to live in a settlement. She says that, whereas within Israel she would live in an apartment, in Neve Tsuf she has a house.”

The cable then quoted a Nefesh B’Nefesh study saying that 4 percent of American immigrants to Israel in 2004 settled over the Green Line. In 2004, the cable said 1,700 Americans immigrated to Israel, roughly the same number as in 2003.

According to the cable, signed by then-US ambassador Dan Kurtzer, the woman “opposes the disengagement plan and the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

She said there are ‘21 Arab nations, and they don’t need another one.’ In a tone more sheepish than strident, she said the conflict in Israel and the territories is part of the biblical struggle between the Jews and the ‘sons of Ishmael.’ However, she said she is not an ‘Arab hater.’ She stated that an Arab built her house.”