Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation is less convinced the file represents a challenge to the US government. "I don't see it as a challenge, as much as being open about what's going on," she told the BBC. In Ms Cohn's view the idea of circulating encrypted copies of information to keep it safe is well-established. The tactic, according to Ms Cohn, has been used in the past by human rights groups and other organisations. She points to projects like Freenet, which use encryption and wide distribution of data to resist censorship. "Wikileaks is doing the same basic thing in a more directly political context and using encryption to allow them to be more open about it on the front end." Read full article.
 

“I think it would be the largest ever,” said William Hartung, director of the New York City-based New America Foundation’s Arms and Security Initiative. “Other deals that used to be considered large,” like the $9 billion sale of 72 F-15s to the Saudis in 1992-93 or the kingdom’s $9 billion acquisition of U.S. AWACS surveillance aircraft in 1981, “aren’t even in the ballpark, even allowing for inflation,” Hartung said. Read full article.

Gerald Lemelle, executive director of Africa Action which has been advocating such a modification of the Zimbabwe sanctions regimen, commented in a statement that "this is a promising day for everyone who supports democracy and development in Zimbabwe." He called the legislation "a major step forward for the people of Zimbabwe.” Sanctions on President Robert Mugabe and other top figures of his ZANU-PF party and related companies were put in place with the 2001 Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, known as Zidera. Read full article.

"Certain areas of biotechnology are getting more accessible to people with malign intent," said Jonathan Tucker, an expert on biological and chemical weapons at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Geneticist Craig Venter said last month at the first meeting of a presidential commission on bioethics, "If students can order any [genetic sequences] online, somebody could try to make the Ebola virus." Read full article.

Although senior officials say Mr. Ban is committed to fighting corruption, diplomats and others have expressed concern that he avoids antagonizing influential member states that complain vociferously when their citizens are singled out. "They are not making use of the resources they might have had to pursue corruption and fraud," said Bea Edwards, a lawyer with the Government Accountability Project, which defends whistle-blowers in the United Nations and elsewhere. Read full article. 

 "The FBI has been present at community events, including school events with young children present, undercover," Veena Dubal from the Asian Law Caucus said. The caucus is investigating dozens of complaints from people like a Yemini American who did not want to be identified. He says men he met at a restaurant introduced themselves as FBI agents, asked him to be an informant and now frequently visit him. Read full article.

"Most of the sectors that have been targeted in the EU sanctions are ones over which Europeans have a substantial leverage," Mark Fitzpatrick, an Iran specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Reuters. "Not so many other countries can provide the kind of financial services that will be cut off. Few other countries supply technology for liquefied natural gas, nobody else does re-insurance ... The European Union has very wisely found areas over which it has real leverage and cannot be supplanted." Read full article.

"People want more details," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation for American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy. "They want greater clarity and greater candor than they have gotten up to this point. Wikileaks, in this case, has filled a void left by the Pentagon." Read full article.

Cindy Cohn, the legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that no one has developed the vocabulary needed to address social networking. “I worry that we’ll end up with solutions that are familiar but not correct if we start from the wrong metaphor,” she said. “And I’m not sure there is a good metaphor for Facebook.” Read full article.

“We’re at a very delicate juncture now,” said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, an advocacy group. “We’ve only got a certain number of weeks left before the November election.” Read full article.