Among the nearly 250,000 diplomatic cables that were released this weekend by Wikileaks is the revelation that China's Politburo orchestrated an attack on Google's computer systems.

China's Politburo, which oversees the country's Communist Party, "directed the intrusion into Google's computer systems in that country," according to a report published by The New York Times.

A Chinese contact reportedly relayed the information to the American Embassy in Beijing in July.

"The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government," the Times went on to say. "They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said."

In January, Google announced that a cyber attack originating in China had attempted to gain access to Google intellectual property. Sources within the country had also attempted to gain access to the Gmail accounts of known Chinese human rights activists around the globe. As a result, Google announced that it would stop censoring its search results in the country. It followed through in March by redirecting Google.cn traffic to its uncensored site in Hong Kong. By June - in a bid to keep its ISP license in China - Google announced that it would stop redirecting all of its Google.cn traffic through Hong Kong and instead utilize a hybrid landing page. In July, Google secured the ISP license renewal.

China has repeatedly denied blocking Internet access or helping coordinate cyber attacks on foreign governments. A November report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), however, found that China has done little to improve access to and the security of the Internet in the last year, in some cases lending its support to Web-based attacks on foreign computer systems and tightening its control on the Internet.

"For a brief period in April, Chinese Internet service providers 'hijacked,' or inappropriately gained access to, U.S. Internet traffic," USCC vice chairman Carolyn Bartholomew said at the time. "This incident affected numerous government sites, including those for the Senate and the Office of the Secretary of Defense."

Google declined to comment about the NYT report.

The BCC, meanwhile, reported Monday that most of the cables released by Wikileaks were traced to Siprnet, a Defense Department network used for the exchange of classified information. About 2.5 million people have access to Siprnet, where 6 percent (more than 15,000) documents are classified secret, 40 percent are confidential, and the remainder are unclassified, BBC said. Siprnet was identified as a source of the leak because the documents were tagged "Sipdis", or Siprnet Distribution.

The government has criticized Wikileaks for making the documents public. "These cables could compromise private discussions with foreign governments and opposition leaders, and when the substance of private conversations is printed on the front pages of newspapers across the world, it can deeply impact not only U.S. foreign policy interests, but those of our allies and friends around the world," the White House said in a Sunday statement.

"Such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government," the White House continued. "President Obama supports responsible, accountable, and open government at home and around the world, but this reckless and dangerous action runs counter to that goal."

Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, meanwhile, penned a letter to the State Department this weekend asking that Secretary Clinton consider designating Wikileaks as a terrorist organization.