Leaking Wikis

Obviously everyone in the world has heard about Wikileaks and its associated controversies. It seems like the site itself has to keep moving to avoid various attacks, but at the moment it can be found here. My strong first impulse is to be in favor of shining light in secret places. This can be taken to extremes, of course; there is such a thing as appropriate privacy, for governments and corporations as well as for individuals. But the natural tendency on the part of governments (or bureaucracies more generally) is to go too far to the other extreme, making secrecy routine where it should be exceptional -- and using it to cover up embarrassment rather than protecting people's lives. Something like Wikileaks is a great corrective to this tendency. I don't really see, however, how something like the wholesale release of diplomatic cables helps this cause. Some of the cables ...