Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The State Department on Tuesday rubbished voices in the blogosphere calling for ouster of the top U.S. diplomat in the light of damaging reports from leaked State Department cables published by WikiLeaks.

The leaked cables have noted request from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to U.S. diplomats around the world to collect personal data of foreign leaders.

Asked to clarify the subject, P.J. Crowley, the State Department spokesman, told journalists, “By tradition, any document that leaves the Department of State has the Secretary of State’s name on it. She is responsible, but she was not the author of that particular document, and the contents of that came from outside the Department of State.”

Crowley reiterated his earlier views that, “Diplomats are diplomats. That is their job. Diplomats are not intelligence assets.” He added, “it is useful for them to know what is of interest across the government, but this doesn’t change the day-to-day duties of any diplomat anywhere.”

On the alleged directives to collect biometric data and DNA, Crowley told journalists, “There are entities within our government that have certain responsibilities. It is – it’s one thing for that community to provide a wish list across the government that helps people understand what is useful,” noting, “It takes a leap of faith to say that fundamentally changes the day-to-day responsibilities of our diplomats. It doesn’t.”

Crowley requested of journalists to “Please do not infer from one document that this fundamentally changes the role – nothing has changed based on a document that has been issued through the Department for a number of years.”

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