Reporters Without Borders condemns US Air Force' WikiLeaks block

International media watch dog group Reporters Without Borders has condemned the move by the US Air Force to block American news agencies from publishing reports based on cables released by WikiLeaks.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the US Air Force has taken the measure to prevent employees without special authorisation from seeing the leaked cables.

It further reported that the Air Force has blocked access to the websites of the New York Times and at least 25 media entities and blogs that have been publishing the cables.

Reporters Without Borders has described the move by the US authorities as a knee-jerk censorship and an inappropriate and dangerous response.

It says attempts to block the dissemination of sensitive material that’s widely available on the Internet will fail and are also a violation of the right to information.

US Air Force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Brenda Campbell, has reportedly told the New York Times that media websites will be blocked if they post classified documents from the WikiLeaks website.

A Department of Defence spokesman says the Pentagon was not behind the website blocking.

He also said neither the US Army, Navy nor the Marines had adopted similar website blocking measures.