WikiLeaks says ‘transparency’,critics say vandalism

“We believe that transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption,better government and stronger democracies,” the organization’s Web site says. “All governments can benefit from increased scrutiny by the world community,as well as their own people. We believe this scrutiny requires information.”

The trove of war reports posted Sunday dwarfs the scope and volume of documents that the organization has made public in the past.

In a telephone interview from London,the organization’s founder,Julian Assange,said the documents would reveal broader and more pervasive levels of violence in Afghanistan than the military or the news media had previously reported. “It shows not only the severe incidents but the general squalor of war,from the death of individual children to major operations that kill hundreds.”

WikiLeaks withheld some 15,000 documents from release until technicians could redact names of individuals whose safety could be jeopardized.

WikiLeaks’ critics range from the military,which says it jeopardizes operations,to some open government advocates who say the organization is endangering the privacy rights of others in favour of self promotion.

Steven Aftergood,head of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists,accused WikiLeaks of “information vandalism” with no regard for privacy or social usefulness. “WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law or honour rights of individuals,” he wrote.

The release of the data comes nearly three weeks after new charges were filed against an American soldier in Iraq who had been arrested on charges of leaking a video of a deadly American helicopter attack in Baghdad in 2007 that killed 12 people,including a reporter and photographer from the news agency Reuters. He was also charged with downloading more than 150,000 highly classified diplomatic cables.

WikiLeaks has a core group of about half a dozen full-time volunteers,and there are 800 to 1,000 people whom the group can call on for expertise in areas like encryption,programming and writing news releases.

Assange,39,said the site operated from servers in several countries,including Sweden and Belgium,where laws provided more protection for its disclosures.