US officials have just announced that a formal criminal investigation into the Wikilieaks’ publication of classified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents is being launched.

The objective of the investigation is to locate the exact source of the leak to Wikileaks. The effort will be a coordinated one involving both the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Investigators will work to determine precisely how the released information came into the possession of Wikileaks and whether the source is an employee of the agency or a contractor, current or past. They will also be mandated to discover if Wikileaks is in possession of further documents, as yet unpublished.

US officials did confirm that the documents which have been released so far have largely been proven to be genuine. There still remains the possibility that some may have been altered before their release.

The greatest concern for the US government is whether or not Wikileaks will end up publishing critical computer code concerning how the CIA runs its operations. If this information is published, hackers could conceivably cause a great deal of international damage.

Officials were quick to stress, however, that any information garnered by the CIA in its day-to-day operations, was done according to international law and therefore legal. They also pointed out that some of the published documents refer to projects still under development by the agency.

Source :Morocco World News