Does The New York Times want to be the next WikiLeaks? Executive editor Bill Keller tells Yahoo's Cutline that the paper is looking into a submission system that would let leakers send documents directly to the Times rather than going through sites like WikiLeaks.

Does the New York Times want to be the next WikiLeaks? Executive editor Bill Keller tells Yahoo's Cutline that the paper is looking into a submission system that would let leakers send documents directly to the Times rather than going through sites like WikiLeaks.

"A small group from computer-assisted reporting and interactive news, with advice from the investigative unit and the legal department, has been discussing options for creating a kind of EZ Pass lane for leakers," Keller told Cutline.

Among the models for the Times's project is Al Jazeera's Transparency Unit, which allows submissions through an encrypted system. It launched earlier this month, and Al Jazeera recently began reporting on 1,700 documents related to the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Cutline said.

The Times was one of several publications that accepted and published data submitted to WikiLeaks - from data about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the more recent State Department cables leak.

WikiLeaks has come under fire for making this data available, calling into question whether the site and its creators should be considered an actual journalistic endeavor.

On a related note, the Times announced Wednesday that it is publishing its first e-book. The subject? WikiLeaks.

The e-book, titled "Open Secrets: WikiLeaks, War and American Diplomacy," will be available on January 31 through major booksellers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google's bookstore, and Apple's bookstore. A preview will be available online and via the New York Times magazine on January 30.

The e-book will includes expanded profiles of Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, original essays on what the episode has revealed about American diplomacy and government secrecy, analysis from Times correspondents, and opinion essays by Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd, among others.

"The publication of 'Open Secrets' as an e-book is the latest example of the Times exploiting the creative potential of the Web to deliver the world's best journalism in whatever format readers find most appealing," Keller said.