Some people seem to encourage the justice in exposing the secrets and challenging the authority of our establishment - but isn't this a threat to democracy?
The people that do encourage this must believe that a utopia could exist where governments tell the people everything that goes on and the concept of behind the scenes negotiations and deals is eradicated. I don't think this is actually possible, and that secrecy is a charachteristic of any kind of state - democracy or disctatorship.
There is a risk that such exposes will undermine public confidence and lead to something like anarchy or at least a state where the authority of government officials is very low and their ability to carry out efficient operations would be severley damaged. The stuff about the Saudis encouraging the USA to bomb Iran behind closed doors just plays into Ahmadinejad's hands and his wish to make Iran go nuclear. Also, what implications will this have on the Saudi government's ability to run their country effectivley?
On the stuff about foul play in Iraq/Afganistan some months back - mistakes happen and prejudists exist among soldiers (no offense to the brilliance of the majority of soldiers, but some of them are from the lower ranks of society). Perhaps this has exposed the Coalition's peoples to the realities of war and will make them less supportive of their governments' future plans to continue or initiate/intervene in another conflict one day (who knows it might be one that is a matter of immediate national security).
What makes matters worse is that the technology exists to make this possible without anonymity, so the supply of this is likely to increase and or remain healthy whatever happens to Assange and WikiLeaks.
I think this is just an example of how the media in general has got too big for its boots. It already has, I think, sufficient if not excessive power to influence government but its ability to infiltrae the most private and confidential matters of government responsibility is a bit too far.
Probably nothing we can do about it though, what do you guys think?
Edit: An article for those interested, "Missing the point of WikiLeaks" from the Economist -
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/12/after_secrets