Is Wiki Leaks right or wrong? I am not sure; it has been receiving and distributing stolen property, but since the property owner did not do a good job in taking care of the property, and allowed many people to access it, so that any one person could leak it out, how "secret", how "confidential" was the information? As for whether publicizing the information would be for the public good and make governments take better actions, I dont see a clear case yet. If anyone can demonstrate such a case, by all means put the case on the web and let everyone be convinced - on the other hand, maybe that's so important you want to keep it secret? until, that is, it gets leaked to Wiki Leaks. In a way, it reminds me of Michael Douglas's wedding photos - an old article

Public figures, privacy and morality

A few years ago there was a logically rather weird lawsuit in Hollywood: Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas sued a newspaper for invasion of privacy by taking unauthorized photos at their wedding. The problem was that they already signed an exclusive contract with another paper to publish their wedding photos; in other words, the wedding was not meant to be private. What they were really trying to protect was intellectual property: the wedding scenes were valuable assets which they own, and have the right to sell to someone they choose, and other people cannot infringe the assets.

In other words, public figures who drive commercial values from their privacy have a harder time obtaining legal protection for it, because the protection has already been shifted to a different domain. A somewhat similar situation exists with the reputation of politicians, which is an intangeable asset they need to use when seeking office. Since their personal character is part of the assets they put in front of the public, it can be discussed and probed by the public. If any reports unfairly damage their reputations and hence their careers, they are entitled to seek significant compensations, but mere invasion of privacy and minor inaccuracies in reports and comments, are just professional hazards they have to live with.

Each of us have an ugly side that we keep hidden, but for public figures this is much harder to achieve. Further, people who are used to appearing in public have thicker skins and are more likely to do things others are too embarrassed to do; hence, they have more to hide. Yet, public figures usually have some kind of ideal image that they try to maintain, so that they are specially sensitive about their hidden side; at the same time, others are all the more keen to dig that side out because of this, and if they cannot find anything major, would dig out trivialities, or even invent something out of nothing, as long as the stories attract some paying readers.

The result is a mischievous scene in which all public figures and all reporters look deviant and immoral, with bad influence on the next generation.

Whether one is a public figure or not, it is always best to have few secrets, since every secret is a burden, even perhaps a potential threat waiting to be exploited by someone who gets hold of it. It is in everyone's interest to reduce the number of secrets, basically by putting a diluted version of it before anyone else knows the story. Today everyone has the means to set up a blog, which provides an excellent means to achieve this purporse; in fact one can derive some advertising value from this while reducing the burdens and threats.

In other words, I think it is more an issue of property rights than security: the US government decided that X people are entitled to information item Y, but wiki leaks decided that more than X people are entitled to it, so the X people became less privileged than before the leak occurred

In the mean time, there was just one document relating to Singapore, some comments made by Lee Kuan Yew about North Korea and China leaders; LKY is probably quite pleased about the leak: NY Times took the trouble to publish one article specially on his comments, showing that at least to NY Times LKY is important. (My memory could be faulty because I have not been able to locate this article, but instead found one in Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/210110

though my conclusion is still valid) 

As for diplomatic damages, probably very little since the views could not have been a big surprise to the North Koreans and Mainland Chinese. Now his very positive view of Wang Qishan, in comparison with the few views expressed about several other Chinse leaders, might annoy a bit, but I doubt the big shots would actually care that much.

added on 13/12/10 a new batch of leaked diplomatic communication from singapore appeared; despite the pedestrian content, the leaked information is surprising to me because

1. Tommy Koh, a suave, soft spoken diplomat, used such harsh language to discuss friendly nations

2. Australian intelligence judged Singapore intelligence to have inside information about the Anwar-Saiful incident – on the surface, the inside information seems to be just what is already on the street; it does not reflect highly on either side of the conversation