# The Senate WikiLeaks ban > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "The Senate WikiLeaks ban," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-senate-wikileaks-ban/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The instruction John Kiriakou watched the Senate security officer deliver in person to all one hundred senators and every committee after the WikiLeaks cables were published — that opening the material on a Senate computer would be the crime of unauthorized access to classified information, and that anyone who did so would be prosecuted.* - **When:** The immediate aftermath of the [Chelsea Manning](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/chelsea-manning) disclosures - **Kiriakou's post:** Senior investigator, [Senate Foreign Relations Committee](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/senate-foreign-relations-committee) - **Delivered by:** The Senate security officer, in person, over several days - **To:** All 100 senators and every committee and subcommittee - **The warning:** Accessing the material on a Senate computer would constitute unauthorized access of classified information - **Effect:** *"Nobody dared go to the WikiLeaks website"* **The Senate WikiLeaks ban** is [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s account of how the legislature responded to the publication of the [Chelsea Manning](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/chelsea-manning) cables. He was then the senior investigator on the [Senate Foreign Relations Committee](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/senate-foreign-relations-committee) staff and watched it happen from inside.[1] > *"The Senate security officer went from office to office to office — it took him days to go to the office of every one of the hundred senators and then every one of the committees and subcommittees — and said you may not access any of this information on a US Senate computer. It would constitute the crime of unauthorized access of classified information."* The instruction was backed by an explicit threat: *"they threatened everybody with prosecution, and so nobody dared go to the WikiLeaks website."* The prohibition reached only the desks. *"Well, of course we're all news hounds, so we all watched the news coverage and we see exactly what it was that was released."*[1][2] ## What he says was actually in it Kiriakou's own assessment of the tranche, made from the coverage rather than from the documents, is deflationary. Ninety-nine per cent of it, he says, was *"just regular normal diplomatic cables. They meant nothing. This diplomat went to the foreign ministry and delivered a démarche or a white paper, or we asked this country to support our nominee for the international board of fisheries, or whatever — just normal diplomatic nonsense."*[2] The remainder is where he locates the argument: *"one percent of it was interesting, important, exposed crimes."* On the standing objection he is unequivocal, and treats the passage of time as the evidence: *"Did it harm the national security? I think we can say definitively after all these years — absolutely not."*[3] From which he draws the conclusion he repeats three times across the interview: *"the American people have the right to know what the government is doing in their name, and if what they're doing is against the law — a violation of either US or international law — not only do the American people have the right to know, but those crimes ought to be prosecuted."*[3][4] ## See also - [Chelsea Manning](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/chelsea-manning) - [Julian Assange](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/julian-assange) - [Senate Foreign Relations Committee](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/senate-foreign-relations-committee) - [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) ## Sources 1. Julian Assange and the U.S. War on Whistleblowers with John Kiriakou (2022-05-04), at 16:26. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud469eadc76&t=986s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2022-05-04-covertaction-bulletin-julian-assange-and-the-u-s-war-on-whistleblow/ 2. Julian Assange and the U.S. War on Whistleblowers with John Kiriakou (2022-05-04), at 16:56. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud469eadc76&t=1016s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2022-05-04-covertaction-bulletin-julian-assange-and-the-u-s-war-on-whistleblow/ 3. Julian Assange and the U.S. War on Whistleblowers with John Kiriakou (2022-05-04), at 17:33. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud469eadc76&t=1053s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2022-05-04-covertaction-bulletin-julian-assange-and-the-u-s-war-on-whistleblow/ 4. Julian Assange and the U.S. War on Whistleblowers with John Kiriakou (2022-05-04), at 18:07. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud469eadc76&t=1087s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2022-05-04-covertaction-bulletin-julian-assange-and-the-u-s-war-on-whistleblow/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-senate-wikileaks-ban/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt