Has WikiLeaks Gotten Someone Killed?

By Greg Scoblete
November 29, 2010

Has WikiLeaks gotten anyone killed?

A common refrain among critics of WikiLeaks is that their various revelations could get people killed. My question - have they? It's been several months since the publication of Afghan documents and some cursory research shows that while the Taliban had expressed interest in hunting down informants named in those documents, it's not clear if they succeeded or even tried. Ditto for the Iraq document dump, it doesn't appear that anyone's been physically harmed by them. But I genuinely don't know and neither, I suspect, do the people making that accusation (although I'll gladly stand corrected).

That doesn't make WikiLeaks right for releasing this information - I don't believe they are, in part for reasons elucidated by Daniel Drezner here.

Update: Just found this:

'But despite similar warnings ahead of the previous two massive releases of classified U.S. intelligence reports by the website, U.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date that the documents led to anyone's death.'

(AP Photo)

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