More WikiLeaks

The latest leaked document to garner outrage at WikiLeaks is a "long list of key facilities around the world that the US describes as vital to its national security."

BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says this is probably the most controversial document yet from the Wikileaks organisation.

...The geographical range of the document on installations is extraordinary, our correspondent says.

If the US sees itself as waging a "global war on terror" then this represents a global directory of the key installations and facilities - many of them medical or industrial - that are seen as being of vital importance to Washington.

...The critical question is whether this really is a listing of potential targets that might be of use to a terrorist, our correspondent says.

The cable contains a simple listing. In many cases towns are noted as the location but not actual street addresses, although this is unlikely to stop anyone with access to the internet from locating them.

There are also no details of security measures at any of the listed sites.

What the list might do is to prompt potential attackers to look at a broader range of targets, especially given that the US authorities classify them as being so important.

It is not perhaps a major security breach, but many governments may see it as an unhelpful development, our correspondent says.

"An unhelpful development" is a really good way of describing it, IMO. The release of this list doesn't strike me as quite warranting profound alarm, if only because most of the sites on the list would be evident targets for disruption even if they hadn't been officially sanctioned by this document as important to US interests. And terrorists aren't stupid. "World Trade Center" didn't need to be on a list to be a target.

On the other hand, it doesn't seem particularly necessary to hand this list to people who might be interested in causing maximum chaos and/or destruction, nor particularly scandalous if the document had been kept concealed.

So. Unhelpful development. Yeah.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has the latest on the campaign to keep WikiLeaks leakin'.