Mixed reactions on whether Wikileaks went too far with Afghan docs

Internet leak clearinghouse Wikileaks made the news over the weekend, being the source of the release of 92,000 secret government documents detailing US activity in Afghanistan from January 2004 to December 2009. The full suite of documents was provided to three news organizations about two weeks ago.

The New York Times, Britain's The Guardian, and Germany's Der Spiegel were given access provided they didn't report on the contents until Sunday. Indeed, it paints a not-too-forgiving picture of a US armed force that was fighting an increasingly organized Taliban on strained resources.

Release of the documentation has strained the company's servers, with the site tweeting Monday morning that it was "tremendously overloaded."

Of course, the documents have created yet another public relations issue for the Obama Administration, even though a majority of the documents come from the previous Administration. That said, government officials came down hard on the site, calling its activities "irresponsible."

"Wikileaks made no effort to contact us about these documents -- the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted," National Security Advisor General James Jones said in a statement posted to the White House website.

"These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people."

Indeed, the federal government has come down hard on Wikileaks before: in February 2008, a San Francisco federal court issued an injunction that disabled the site's primary domain. That only lasted about two weeks however, as the judge in the case cited First Amendment concerns and reversed his own decision.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange defended his sites judgement, saying that the site took great care not to put any armed forces in danger, according to the Guardian. He did say that the documents may be of "investigative consequence," saying evidence of war crimes on the United States' part exists.

Reaction to the release from media critics and experts has been notably mixed. Writing for the Guardian, journalism professor Roy Greenslade hailed the release as a win for "data journalism."

"We journalists should be delighted because our central task has always been one of disclosure, of revealing public interest material that others believe wish to be kept secret," he argued.

"The emerging form of disclosure through the internet, pioneered so successfully in the past couple of years by Wikileaks, deserves our praise and needs to be defended against the reactionary forces that seek to avoid exposure."

It should be noted that the "secret" clearance needed for people to view these documents is a low-level one and fairly commonplace. Most sensitive documents require higher clearance levels, meaning its release probably would not put US servicemen in danger.

Others were not as positive, and echoed the White House's concerns. "Somebody ought to be wearing an orange jumpsuit," Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) said, who is the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.