Whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks is planning to release a video that reveals what it’s calling a Pentagon “cover-up” of an incident in which numerous civilians and journalists were murdered in an airstrike, according to a recent media advisory.

The video will be released on April 5 at the National Press Club, the group said.

They also noted their members have recently been tailed by individuals under State Department diplomatic immunity, and that “one related person was detained for 22 hours” while authorities seized computer equipment.

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In a video released Friday, a Russia Today broadcast discusses the pending release of the video WikiLeaks first announced in a tweet on Feb. 20, 2010, which read: “Finally cracked the encryption to US military video in which journalists, among others, are shot. Thanks to all who donated $/CPUs.”

A follow-up on March 22 announced their reveal date.

“Over the last few years, WikiLeaks has been the subject of hostile acts by security organizations,” founder Julian Assange writes. “We’ve become used to the level of security service interest in us and have established procedures to ignore that interest. But the increase in surveillance activities this last month, in a time when we are barely publishing due to fundraising, are excessive.”

On Tuesday evening, followers of the WikiLeaks Twitter feed were startled to read, “WikiLeaks is currently under an aggressive US and Icelandic surveillance operation.” This was followed a few minutes later by “If anything happens to us, you know why: it is our Apr 5 film. And you know who is responsible.” A succeeding message warned, “We have airline records of the State Dep/CIA tails. Don’t think you can get away with it. You cannot. This is WikiLeaks.”

The site also recently published a document by a CIA think tank that proposes how European public opinion on the Afghan war could be manipulated.

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“The need for independent leaks and whistle-blowing exposures is particularly acute now because, at exactly the same time that investigative journalism has collapsed, public and private efforts to manipulate public opinion have proliferated,” Glenn Greenwald wrote in a recent piece about how the United States and other governments plot to destroy WikiLeaks. ” This is exemplified by the type of public opinion management campaign detailed by the above-referenced CIA Report, the Pentagon’s TV propaganda program exposed in 2008, and the ways in which private interests covertly pay and control supposedly “independent political commentators” to participate in our public debates and shape public opinion.”

This video was published to YouTube on March 26, 2010, clipped from Russia Today.

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The full WikiLeaks press release follows.

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The State Department/CIA has been tailing and detaining those related to Wikileaks over the planned April 5th leak of a decrypted video depicting an airstrike on civilians and journalissts.

iReport has the story on this.

Wikileaks Twitter page:

http://twitter.com/wikileaks

“We have airline records of the State Dep/CIA tails. Don’t think you can get away with it. You cannot. This is WikiLeaks.”

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Sounds like the people behind Wikileaks are under some pressure. Since this is unlikely to turn up in your newspapers, I post it here to spread awareness.

Wikileaks has a mission of bringing hidden information to light, when it’s in the public interest. Wikipedia outlines their greatest hits, including Gauntanamo Bay procedure documents, scientology secrets, and net censorship lists. They come under fire sometimes for hosting material that probably isn’t much in the public interest, but overall they have contributed some compelling information to some fractious global arguments.

In the last 24 hours, their Twitter feed has contained some worrying content.

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* WikiLeaks to reveal Pentagon murder-coverup at US National Press Club, Apr 5, 9am; contact [email protected]

* WikiLeaks is currently under an aggressive US and Icelandic surveillance operation. Following/photographing/filming/detaining

* If anything happens to us, you know why: it is our Apr 5 film. And you know who is responsible.

* Two under State Dep diplomatic cover followed our editor from Iceland to http://skup.no on Thursday.

* One related person was detained for 22 hours. Computer’s seized.That’s http://www.skup.no

* We know our possession of the decrypted airstrike video is now being discussed at the highest levels of US command.

* We have been shown secret photos of our production meetings and been asked specific questions during detention related to the airstrike.

* We have airline records of the State Dep/CIA tails. Don’t think you can get away with it. You cannot. This is WikiLeaks.

All those came out in a rush, then silence for hours. Might just be a timezone thing, with people sleeping, or maybe there’s been no news, or maybe everyone with access to the Twitter feed has been detained. I await more information.

UPDATE: “To those worrying about us–we’re fine, and will issue a suitable riposte shortly.” 8.22am NZ time.

UPDATE: Just noticed that the first tweet quoted, “WikiLeaks to reveal Pentagon murder-coverup” is gone from the feed. Now I wish I’d linked to all of them individually. Anyway, it was definitely there, and I think Linda is right that it is this previously-referred-to video

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UPDATE: commenter eru found the missing tweet. It isn’t visible in the ordinary feed for some reason.