The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, providing access to classified intelligence, military and diplomatic documents, has been making headlines since its creation. The US government was hunting and prosecuting whistleblowers, saying the leaks pose a huge threat to national security. But it turns out that the leaked data, specifically on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was not so sensitive, a secret 107-page document obtained by the BuzzFeed News revealed.
Comment: The purpose of punishing Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, John Kirikaou, etc. is not that their leaks are damaging to the American Empire. The US wants to make sure that anyone who might even consider leaking anything understands the US does not suffer such actions lightly. It's not about harm to US national security, it's about total information control to maintain the facade of US moral superiority.
A task force of more than 20 US agencies, including NSA, CIA and FBI, carried out a "line-by-line review" of more than 740,000 records of "known or believed compromised" WikiLeaks data available as for 2011. The document was provided to BuzzFeed under a Freedom of Information Act, in response to a request filed in 2015. However, it was not fully disclosed, with only 35 pages available.
Comment: See also: