WikiLeaks says it won't be threatened by Pentagon

The Pentagon has said that the secret information will be even more damaging to security and put more lives at risk than WikiLeaks' initial release of some 76,000 war documents, The Associated Press reported.

“This organization will not be threatened by the Pentagon or any other group,” WikiLeaks founder and spokesman Julian Assange told reporters in Stockholm. “We proceed cautiously and safely with this material.”

He said WikiLeaks was about halfway though a “line-by-line review” of the 15,000 documents and expected to publish them within weeks. Assange said “innocent parties who are under reasonable threat” would be redacted from the material.

The Obama administration is pressing Britain, Germany, Australia, and other allied Western governments to consider opening criminal investigations of Assange and to severely limit his nomadic travels across international borders, U.S. officials say.

Officials tell The Daily Beast that the U.S. effort reflects a growing belief that WikiLeaks and organizations like it could do grave damage to U.S. national security, as well as a growing suspicion in Washington that Assange has damaged his own standing with foreign governments and organizations that might otherwise be sympathetic to his anti-censorship cause.

U.S. officials confirmed last month that the Justice Department was weighing a range of criminal charges against Assange and others as a result of the massive leaking of classified U.S. military reports from the war in Afghanistan, including potential violations of the Espionage Act by Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst in Iraq accused of providing the documents to WikiLeaks.

Now, the officials say, they want other foreign governments to consider the same sorts of criminal charges, The Daily Beast reported.

“It’s not just our troops that are put in jeopardy by this leaking,” said an U.S. diplomatic official who is involved in responding to the aftermath of the release of more than 70,000 Afghanistan war logs -- and WikiLeaks’ threat to reveal 15,000 more of the classified reports.

“It’s UK troops, it’s German troops, it’s Australian troops -- all of the NATO troops and foreign forces working together in Afghanistan,” he said. Their governments, he said, should follow the lead of the Justice Department and “review whether the actions of WikiLeaks could constitute crimes under their own national-security laws.”

The first documents released in WikiLeaks' “Afghan War Diary” laid bare classified military documents covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. The release angered U.S. officials, energized critics of the NATO-led campaign.

That has aroused the concern of several human rights group operating in Afghanistan and the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which has accused WikiLeaks of recklessness. Jean-Francois Julliard, the group's secretary-general, said Thursday that WikiLeaks showed “incredible irresponsibility” when posting the documents online.

WikiLeaks describes itself as a public service organization for whistleblowers, journalists and activists.

In addition to speaking at a seminar, Assange was in Sweden to investigate claims that the website was not covered by laws protecting anonymous sources in the Scandinavian country.

He confirmed to Swedish broadcaster SVT that WikiLeaks passes information through Belgium and Sweden “to take advantage of laws there.” But some experts say the site doesn't have the publishing certificate needed for full protection in Sweden.

Photo: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange attends a seminar at the Swedish Trade Union Confederation headquarters in Stockholm on August 14, 2010. (Getty Images)