Once more into the (security) breach

As WikiLeaks’ media partners (official and otherwise) have multiplied, it’s gotten harder to follow what are and aren’t new revelations in the U.S. State Department cables; even some of the media outlets seem confused. Take Britain’s Daily Telegraph, which has a big headline today detailing a scoop from an ostensibly new batch of cables detailing ...

Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

As WikiLeaks’ media partners (official and otherwise) have multiplied, it’s gotten harder to follow what are and aren’t new revelations in the U.S. State Department cables; even some of the media outlets seem confused. Take Britain’s Daily Telegraph, which has a big headline today detailing a scoop from an ostensibly new batch of cables detailing the British government’s behind-the-scenes discussions of the release of Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. The Telegraph flags an October 2008 cable in which a British Foreign Office minister advises the Libyan government on how to request the compassionate release of Megrahi, who had recently been diagnosed with inoperable cancer.

Interesting stuff — enough so that the Guardian published the cable and wrote about it early last month.

Charles Homans is a special correspondent for the New Republic and the former features editor of Foreign Policy.

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