Assange was due at Westminster Magistrate's Court later Tuesday.
WikiLeaks' disclosure of key sites that the U.S. has deemed critical to national security marks an increasingly dangerous step by the online organization, whose actions are at the center of a broad criminal investigation, U.S. officials and some security analysts said Monday.
The list of power suppliers, dams, chemical manufacturers, transportation systems and communication grids spans the globe from Africa to Mexico and is part of a cache of classified State Department documents released by WikiLeaks.
"It is a map for terrorists, plain and simple," said Tom Kean, a co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission.
Although many of the sensitive sites — which include key suppliers of vaccines and other medicines — are well-known, Kean said the fact that they are listed as important to the U.S. gives enemies valuable intelligence. "It's one thing for a group to sit around and make a list of things that might be important to the U.S.," he said. "It's another thing to have the list that was developed by the U.S. government."
Randall Larsen, former executive director of the congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, said the list's publication would make WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange an enemy of the world: "Every nation in the world is soon going to realize what an enemy this guy is. He just published the target list."
Assange, wanted by Swedish authorities in connection with a rape investigation, was negotiating with British authorities Monday about the Swedish arrest warrant, the Associated Press reported.
Julian Assange Arrested
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