'Wikileaks was irresponsible'

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales said on Tuesday that whistle-blower website WikiLeaks’ decision to publish entire contents of classified US military documents was irresponsible and could put innocent lives at risk.

WikiLeaks drew worldwide publicity in late July when it posted a huge trove of secret US military documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The US Defence Department has warned it could have blood on its hands for publishing documents that name Afghan sources.

Wales said he supported the need for avenues for whistle-blowers to expose wrongdoing but called for journalistic integrity and responsibility to censor unrelated information that could put people in danger.

“The issue that I have with WikiLeaks is they have a tendency to just want to publish absolutely everything, and I think that can be very, very dangerous,” Wales told a business conference in Malaysia’s largest city, Kuala Lumpur.

“I don’t think (WikiLeaks founder) Julian Assange wants those people killed. However, if he irresponsibly follows the policy of releasing absolutely everything, it is incredibly dangerous for those people.

First Published: Sep 29, 2010 00:27 IST