WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said to members of the media during a news conference in central London, on Thursday that its massive archive of sensitive U.S. State Department cables had been exposed in a security breach which it blamed on its one-time partner, Britain's Guardian newspaper.

Leigh and the Guardian both denied any wrongdoing, and the exact sequence of events WikiLeaks was referring to remained clouded in confusion and recriminations. It has long been known that WikiLeaks lost control of the raw cables even before they were published. One copy of the secret documents leaked to The New York Times in the fall of 2010.

The United States, meanwhile, denied ever cooperating with the anti-secrecy group, and blasted Wikileaks for allegedly threatening national security and the safety of confidential informants. American officials have warned that the disclosures could also have had serious consequences for informants, activists and others named in the cables.

The controversy over WikiLeaks has raised three separate but interlinked issues from the human rights perspective. The first issue is being the rights of a whistle blower. The second being the free speech rights of a website publisher. Third is the responsibility of that website to protect innocent people from harm, including human rights defenders and dissidents who might be named in the leaked cables. The gross violations on the issues collectively by the concerned have to be considered by the authorities involved.