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Monday, Nov 22, 2010 5:58 PM UTC

Wikileaks release to be unprecedented in magnitude

A cryptic tweet alludes to a forthcoming leak 7 times larger than the Iraq logs

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Topics: WikiLeaks,

WikiLeaks’ next release will be seven times the size of the Iraq war logs, already the biggest leak in U.S. intelligence history, the website said Monday.

The organization made the announcement in a brief message posted to its followers on Twitter, giving no information about the content of the coming release or its exact timing — although it did refer to “the coming months” in a separate tweet sent about an hour later.

Although the website has been spilling secrets for years, WikiLeaks shot to international prominence this year with a three leaks. One exposed a classified U.S. helicopter video that appears to show an attack on two Reuters employees and other civilians. The second made public 77,000 ground-level U.S. intelligence files covering the war in Afghanistan. The third put out 400,000 more such files exposing the daily grind of attacks, detentions and interrogations in Iraq.

Although it isn’t clear what WikiLeaks is planning to release next, it allegedly has a huge cache of classified U.S. State Department cables whose publication could give a behind-the-scenes look at American diplomacy around the world.

In the message, the site also said it was under “intense pressure” over the imminent release — a possible reference to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s legal problems in Sweden, where he is wanted for alleged sexual misconduct. It could also be a reference to the constant pressure which Assange says is being applied to the website’s servers, security, and finances.

WikiLeaks did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking further clarification. Assange says he never makes the exact nature of his releases public ahead of time, explaining that that gives secret-holders time much to spin the information to their advantage.

More Raphael G. Satter.

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