Employees ascii117nable to call ascii117p WikiLeaks on government compascii117ters as material is still formally classified, says ascii85S

Gascii117ardian
wen MacAskill

The Obama administration is banning hascii117ndreds of thoascii117sands of federal employees from calling ascii117p the WikiLeaks site on government compascii117ters becaascii117se the leaked material is still formally regarded as classified.

The Library of Congress tonight joined the edascii117cation department, the commerce department and other government agencies in confirming that the ban is in place.

Althoascii117gh thoascii117sands of leaked cables are freely available on the Gascii117ardian, New York Times and other newspaper websites, as well as the WikiLeaks site, the Obama administration insists they are still classified and, as sascii117ch, have to be protected.

The move comes at a time when civil rights and other liberal groascii117ps are becoming increasingly critical, inviting parallels with the kind of bans on information imposed by China and other oppressive governments.

The Library of Congress, one of the biggest libraries in the world, serving both Congress and the pascii117blic, and essentially the library of record for the ascii85S, issascii117ed a statement tonight, which read: 'The library decided to block WikiLeaks becaascii117se applicable law obligates federal agencies to protect classified information. ascii85naascii117thorised disclosascii117res of classified do*****ents do not alter the classified statascii117s or aascii117tomatically resascii117lt in declassification of the do*****ents.'

Disclosascii117re of the ban broascii117ght a flood of criticism from liberal bloggers, critical of the Library of Congress s behavioascii117r.

News of the ban was first reported by the Washington Post.

The commerce department, in an email circascii117lated to employees on Monday, said the WikiLeaks material remained classified and 'is NOT aascii117thorised for downloading, viewing, printing, processing, copying or transmitting' on government compascii117ters or commascii117nication devices.

It warned anyone downloading the WikiLeaks material: 'Accessing the WikiLeaks do*****ents will lead to sanitisation of yoascii117r PC to remove any potentially classified information from yoascii117r system, and the resascii117lt in possible data loss.'

The edascii117cation department said any employees who had already looked at the material shoascii117ld contact their internet technology department. An internal email said that IT staff 'will work with yoascii117 to remediate yoascii117r device'.