Wiki-leaks is probably the new normal

In general, the release of confidential information has both benefits and drawbacks. Details of ongoing operations can get people killed, but that hasn't been an issue thus far. Names of people talking with other governments in confidence can potentially be far more damaging and will make people less willing to work with the organization in question, as noted by an Iraqi Shia and a TIbetan in the PRC at the end of this article by Keith Rich Burg and Leila Fadel.

Ultimately, I think wiki-leaks is a fairly inevitable result of information technology in free societies. Julian Assange is not a common sort of figure, but he is hardly unique and I think much of his prickliness and self-righteousness are similarly common features. As the technology to do what he's done becomes more readily available even campaigns of harassment and death threats from some U.S. politicians isn't going to stop this sort of thing. On that note, I will say that I think the assassination talk is overblown to the point of discrediting the U.S., yes people may get hurt but when we aren't talking real time operational details, nuke codes, or the name of field agents, coercive force isn't warranted.

On the whole, Assange is using a crowd sourcing model in an attempt to process the massive amount of information he's received. In practice, this leads to a strategy of not just in whistleblowing but also in using transparency against secretive organizations and governments, in other words heightening the contradictions. Wikileaks has expressed a willingness to redact names, but they aren't willing to let concern about names get prevent them from publishing as ultimately they are information providers and not information processors. Colum Lynch and Peter Finn explore this issue in a Post article:

The State Department has identified what one senior official described as a significant number of activists and journalists whom it believes will be endangered if named. The official said a number of "very sensitive sources" could be arrested or targeted with violence if their names are published.

"These are red-flag lists," the official said.

U.S officials declined to provide specifics on people who were at risk or to characterize those individuals' contacts with American officials. The State Department also refused a WikiLeaks request, made over the weekend, to provide information on the names of individuals whose lives may be "at significant risk of harm."

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said that he urged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in writing over the holiday weekend to "redact from the documents the names of any U.S.-supported human rights defenders who might be placed in jeopardy."

At the same time, however, he voiced concern that the State Department was trying to use the "fear of disclosure about human rights defenders as an excuse to pursue WikiLeaks or restrict access to this kind of information."

So, what's the appropriate response for those of us on the research end? I'd say a few principles suggest themselves:

• First off, transparency is important for revealing abuses, I agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates that "I do think the American public is served by knowing that the U.S. forces killed civilians and reporters, and evidently tried to cover it up.  I do not think it serves the American public, or those of us who prefer diplomacy over armed force, to basically allow no anonymity for diplomats." It's important to defend those engaged in conventional whistleblowing although with a few exceptions, such as the details on the successful U.S. effort to squash Spanish investigation of American human rights abuses.
• Even when using publicly available information, I think researchers are obligated to protect the personal information of those who aren't engaged in wrong doing.
• In general, I don't think it's appropriate to use confidential information for the purpose of embarrassing those you disagree with. The amount of documents released should be proportionate to the alleged misconduct.
• As long as you meet the criteria above I think it can be ethical to make use of published formerly confidential sources. But recognize that proper redacting costs money and thus support organizations that either limit data availability to those unlikely to misuse the data or that undertake efforts to scrub documents in the first place.
• Finally, as Yglesias argues, don't put to much weight on secret information. Public government statements are more meaningful than private one and on the whole you can learn more about U.S. relations with dictatorial client states in the Middle East from Marc Lynch than from the diplomatic cables.