U.S. to tighten security after document leaks

The Obama administration says it is taking new steps to protect government secrets after the release of thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables by the WikiLeaks website.

The White House announced Wednesday that National Security Adviser Tom Donilon has appointed a senior adviser to lead a comprehensive effort to identify and develop reforms needed in light of the document leaks.

An independent board that advises President Barack Obama on intelligence matters also will examine how the executive branch shares and protects classified information.

The latest steps are in addition to actions taken by the White House Office of Management and Budget, and the State and Defence departments in response to the disclosures.

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks said Amazon.com kicked its website from its servers, forcing the site to move back to a Swedish provider.

Senator Joe Leiberman said the move by Amazon.com Inc. comes after congressional staffers called the company Tuesday to inquire about its relationship with WikiLeaks.

The site, which just released a trove of sensitive U.S. State Department documents, took up residence on Amazon's self-service web servers after a rash of internet-based attacks started Sunday against its Swedish host, Bahnhof.

The attacks made access to the site a hit and miss affair. The site was also unavailable for hours on Wednesday, as Amazon's servers stopped responding to requests. Amazon.com would not comment on its relationship with WikiLeaks.

U.S. diplomacy unaffected, Clinton says

Earlier Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the embarrassing release of of secret U.S. diplomatic documents will not interfere with American diplomacy.

"I have certainly raised the issue of the leaks in order to assure our colleagues that it will not in any way interfere with American diplomacy or our commitment to continuing important work," Clinton said at the summit in Kazakhstan, on the second day of a four-day trip to Central Asia.

None of those colleagues from other countries expressed "any concerns" about continuing to work with the U.S. "and discuss matters of importance to us both going forward," she added.

Clinton held the discussions in the Kazakhstan capital of Astana, where she is attending the two-day Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe summit.

Attending were heads of state and top diplomats from 56 countries — many of them named in the WikiLeaks documents, and often in unflattering terms — including Italy, France, Germany and Russia.

"I anticipate that there will be a lot of questions that people have every right and reason to ask, and we stand ready to discuss them at any time with our counterparts around the world," Clinton added.

Assange calls for resignation

Clinton has lost the support of one key player in the WikiLeaks debacle: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Speaking to Time magazine via Skype from a secret location on Tuesday, Assange called on Clinton to resign.

"She should resign if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering in espionage in violation of the international covenant to which the U.S. has signed up," Assange said, referring presumably to revelations that U.S. diplomats were asked to spy on their foreign United Nations counterparts.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs responded Wednesday, calling Assange's statements "both ridiculous and absurd."

Gibbs told NBC News that Clinton had done nothing wrong and said U.S. diplomats do not engage in spying.

Earlier Wednesday, the U.S. State Department insisted Clinton did not order state department staff to spy on diplomats, as the documents suggest.

The Australian-born Assange has been in hiding since Sunday, when the first of the more than 250,000 leaked documents were published in five publications around the world.

Interpol issued a "red notice" for the 39-year-old on Tuesday — the equivalent of putting him on its most-wanted list — after Sweden issued an arrest warrant against him as part of a drawn-out rape investigation.