On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks and five international newspapers began publishing U.S. State Department cables sent by 274 embassies, consulates, and diplomatic missions between December 1966 and February 2010. The material included assessments of foreign officials, intelligence operations, alleged U.S. pressure on allies, and a National Humint Collection Directive seeking diplomats’ biometric data, passwords, encryption keys, account numbers, and other identifying information. The disclosures also exposed the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, which identified infrastructure considered vital to global communications and supply chains.
The breach reflected failures on both sides of the information chain. More than three million U.S. personnel reportedly had access to SIPRNet, the Defense Department’s classified network, enabling Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain and transfer large quantities of records. WikiLeaks initially released selected, journalist-redacted files, but its security practices later compounded the damage: an encrypted archive containing the full cable set was placed online as insurance, and Guardian journalist David Leigh published the passphrase in February 2011. After details circulated in August, WikiLeaks released all 251,287 cables, largely unredacted, on 1 September 2011. Manning was convicted by court-martial on 30 July 2013 and sentenced to 35 years; President Barack Obama commuted the sentence, and she was released on 17 May 2017. The episode permanently altered debate over classified-network access, source protection, newsroom handling of leaked data, and the privacy risks of state intelligence collection.
