WikiLeaks blames security exposure on Guardian reporter

PanARMENIAN.Net - Anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said Thursday, September 1, that its massive archive of unredacted U.S. State Department cables had been exposed in a security breach which it blamed on its one-time partner, Britain's Guardian newspaper.

According to the Associated Press, in a 1,600-word-long editorial posted to the Internet, WikiLeaks accused the Guardian's investigative reporter David Leigh of divulging the password needed to decrypt the files in a book he and another Guardian journalist, Luke Harding, published earlier this year.

WikiLeaks said the disclosure had jeopardized the "careful work" it was doing to redact and publish the cables.

"Revolutions and reforms are in danger of being lost as the unpublished cables spread to intelligence contractors and governments before the public," WikiLeaks said in its statement.

Leigh and the Guardian both denied wrongdoing, and the exact sequence of events WikiLeaks was referring to remained clouded in confusion.