Has Wikileaks finally bitten off a secret too big?

Wikileaks – the exposer of all things secret – has been in the news for a variety of reasons the past month or so starting with their appeal for help keeping the site open. No sooner than did they manage to meet a large portion of their operating cost needs than along come word that Wikileaks was one of the many sites being constantly monitored by the Department of Homeland Security and their MiB stepchild the NSA.

Then on March 15, 2010 CNET reports that apparently the US Army expressed the opinion that Wikileaks posed a danger to possible military operational security and information security which humorously enough came to light because the report was published on Wikileaks.

A leaked U.S. Army intelligence report, classified as secret, says the Wikileaks Web site poses a significant “operational security and information security” threat to military operations.

Classified U.S. military information appearing on Wikileaks could “influence operations against the U.S. Army by a variety of domestic and foreign actors,” says the report, prepared in 2008 by the Army Counterintelligence Center and apparently disclosed in its entirety on Monday.

This also ended up as a post at the New York Times that said Wikileaks has been placed on the Pentagon list of enemies that threaten the security of the United States.

To the list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States, the Pentagon has added WikiLeaks.org, a tiny online source of information and documents that governments and corporations around the world would prefer to keep secret.

The Pentagon assessed the danger WikiLeaks.org posed to the Army in a report marked “unauthorized disclosure subject to criminal sanctions.” It concluded that “WikiLeaks.org represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC and INFOSEC threat to the U.S. Army” — or, in plain English, a threat to Army operations and information.

All this pales to the report that Wikileaks is about to produce evidence of a US Military cover-up of a murder – that is if they survive to produce the evidence.

The first clue that something was up may have actually showed up on the Wikileaks Twitter stream back in February when they thanked people for their help in cracking US military encryption on a video file

Finally cracked the encryption to US military video in which journalists, among others, are shot. Thanks to all who donated $/CPUs.

Then more recently, once again on their Twitter stream, they announced that they would be releasing video proof of a murder cover-up

WikiLeaks to reveal Pentagon murder-coverup at US National Press Club, Apr 5, 9am; contact press-club@sunshinepress.org

However there is some concern beginning to build that the folks behind Wikileaks may have finally bitten off a secret even to big for them to release. This morning the blog From the Morgue has posted a timeline of worrying posts by Wikileaks to their Twitter stream yesterday

• WikiLeaks to reveal Pentagon murder-coverup at US National Press Club, Apr 5, 9am; contact press-club@sunshinepress.org
• WikiLeaks is currently under an aggressive US and Icelandic surveillance operation. Following/photographing/filming/detaining
• If anything happens to us, you know why: it is our Apr 5 film. And you know who is responsible.
• Two under State Dep diplomatic cover followed our editor from Iceland to on Thursday.
• One related person was detained for 22 hours. Computer’s seized.That’s http://www.skup.no
• We know our possession of the decrypted airstrike video is now being discussed at the highest levels of US command.
• We have been shown secret photos of our production meetings and been asked specific questions during detention related to the airstrike.
• We have airline records of the State Dep/CIA tails. Don’t think you can get away with it. You cannot. This is WikiLeaks.

As the blog does point out the follow-up silence could very well be due in part to timezone differences however one has to wonder if there will finally be a limit to what powerful agencies in the world will put up with when it comes to their secrets being released to the public.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this story and will post any updated information I come across – or finds me.