BERLIN - Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is blasting Britain's the Guardian newspaper, saying its "negligence" forced his organization's hand in publishing secret U.S. diplomatic memos.
It was Assange's first public comments since Wikileaks disclosed its entire archive of U.S. State Department cables.
Assange told a Berlin technology trade fair audience on Tuesday that a Guardian journalist had published the password to the encrypted files in his book, creating a situation where some people got access to the uncensored files while others did not.
Speaking by video link from outside London, Assange said "it was necessary to give the information in an authenticated way to the general public ... and to those people who might be mentioned in those materials."
