Whistle-blower website WikiLeaks has blamed Britain's Guardian newspaper and an unnamed German individual for the leak of thousands of unedited US diplomatic cables on the Internet. It also said it was preparing to take legal action.

"A Guardian journalist has, in a previously undetected act of gross negligence or malice, and in violation of a signed security agreement with the Guardian's editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger, disclosed top secret decryption passwords to the entire, unredacted, WikiLeaks Cablegate archive," WikiLeaks said in a statement released via Twitter.

It said investigative reporter David Leigh had revealed a password needed to unlock the files in a book about WikiLeaks published by the Guardian earlier this year.

Accusation rejected

But the Guardian has described this information as meaningless, because by the time the book was published, the password had long since expired.

"It's nonsense to suggest the Guardian's WikiLeaks book has compromised security in any way," the newspaper said. "It contained a password, but no details of the location of the files, and we were told it was a temporary password which would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours.

WikiLeaks was founded by Julian Assange

"If anyone at WikiLeaks had thought this compromised security, they have had seven months to remove the files," it argued.

Leigh described the accusations as nonsense in an e-mail to the AP news agency. "I don't see how a member of the public could access such a file anyway, unless a WikiLeaks or ex-WikiLeaks person tells them where it is located and what the file was called."

Little detail is known about the unnamed German, except that WikiLeaks has accused this individual of spreading the password for monetary gain.

Files redacted to protect the innocent

Until this leak, WikiLeaks had worked with a number of partner media organizations and human rights groups to release files that had been edited to remove information that it believed could endanger innocent individuals.

Still, the release of redacted filed was criticized by US officials in particular when WikiLeaks began doing so nine months ago. Now Washington says it greatest fears about this practice have been realized.

Colonel Dave Lapan, a US Defense Department spokesman, told reporters in Washington Wednesday that the security breach demonstrated "what we have said all along about the danger of these types of things. Once WikiLeaks has these documents in its possession, it loses control and information gets out whether they intend to or not."

WikiLeaks, which had been seen by some as a renegade organization for releasing the US diplomatic cables, is now set to turn to legal channels in search of a remedy.

"We have already spoken to the [US] State Department and commenced pre-litigation action. We will issue a formal statement in due course," said the WikiLeaks statement.

Author: Chuck Penfold (AP, dpa, AFP, dapd)

Editor: Martin Kuebler