Calling him as an "anarchist", the US on Friday accused Julian Paul Assange, the founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, of trying to undermine the international system and said he cannot be considered as a journalist or a whistleblower.
"He is not a journalist. He is not a whistleblower. He is a political actor. He has a political agenda," state department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters here.
"He is trying to undermine the international system that enables us to cooperate and collaborate with other governments and to work in multilateral settings and on a bilateral basis to help solve regional and international issues," Mr Crowley said in response to a question.
"What he is doing is damaging to our efforts and the efforts of other governments. They are putting at risk our national interest and the interests of other governments around the world. He is not an objective observer of anything.
"He is an active player. He has an agenda. He's trying to pursue that agenda, and I don't think he can qualify as either a journalist on the one hand or a whistleblower on the other," Mr Crowley argued.
"I think he is an anarchist, but he is not a journalist," he said. In response to another question on the WikiLeaks website he said one might infer it has many characteristics of some Internet sites.
"Not every Internet site you would call a media organisation or a news organisation. We are focused on WikiLeaks behaviour, and I have had personally conversations with media outlets that are reporting on this, and we have had the opportunity to express our specific concerns about intelligence sources and methods and other interests that could put real lives at risk," he said.
Assange, in a letter to US ambassador in the United Kingdom over the weekend, after documents had been released to news organisations, "made what we thought was a halfhearted gesture to have some sort of conversation, but that was after he released the documents and after he knew that they were going to emerge publicly."
"And Assange obviously has a particular political objective behind his activities, and I think that, among other things, disqualifies him as being considered a journalist," Mr Crowley said.