U.S. officials came to the defense of the secretary of state Tuesday, insisting that Hillary Clinton did not order State Department staff to spy on United Nations diplomats, as suggested by a diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks.
The defense came as WikiLeaks found Julian Assange told Time magazine, a sister publication of CNN, that the she should quit.
"She should resign, if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up," Assange said.
U.S. officials insisted Tuesday that American diplomats are not being transformed into intelligence officers or doing anything out of the ordinary, and State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley pointedly responded to Assange's statement.
"This is ridiculous and ill-informed," Crowley said. "The leak of these documents is something we have strongly condemned, but what these documents demonstrate is the tremendous work being done by diplomats around the world, led by Secretary Clinton."
The leaked papers include an purported order from "SECSTATE WASHDC" signed "CLINTON" to American diplomats to engage in intelligence gathering.
In the July 2009 document, Clinton directs her envoys at the United Nations and embassies around the world to collect information ranging from basic biographical data on foreign diplomats to their frequent flyer and credit card numbers and even "biometric information on ranking North Korean diplomats." Typical biometric information can include fingerprints, signatures and iris recognition data.
By Pam Benson and Jill Dougherty, CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/11/30...ex.html?hpt=T2
The defense came as WikiLeaks found Julian Assange told Time magazine, a sister publication of CNN, that the she should quit.
"She should resign, if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up," Assange said.
U.S. officials insisted Tuesday that American diplomats are not being transformed into intelligence officers or doing anything out of the ordinary, and State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley pointedly responded to Assange's statement.
"This is ridiculous and ill-informed," Crowley said. "The leak of these documents is something we have strongly condemned, but what these documents demonstrate is the tremendous work being done by diplomats around the world, led by Secretary Clinton."
The leaked papers include an purported order from "SECSTATE WASHDC" signed "CLINTON" to American diplomats to engage in intelligence gathering.
In the July 2009 document, Clinton directs her envoys at the United Nations and embassies around the world to collect information ranging from basic biographical data on foreign diplomats to their frequent flyer and credit card numbers and even "biometric information on ranking North Korean diplomats." Typical biometric information can include fingerprints, signatures and iris recognition data.
By Pam Benson and Jill Dougherty, CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/11/30...ex.html?hpt=T2
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