Why WikiLeaks Matters

Greg Mitchell

Nearly fifty days have passed since the WikiLeaks document release in late November, this one centering on US diplomatic cables and quickly dubbed "Cablegate." At this writing, not even 3,000 cables from the cache, which reportedly holds more than 251,000 documents, have been published by WikiLeaks or, in most cases, by its newspaper partners, and it's impossible to know whether everything of prime importance has already emerged in the cherry-picking.Julian Assange's next court date in his sex-crime extradition case is not until February 7, and a major WikiLeaks release—rumored to focus on Bank of America—seems to have been pushed back, partly because of WikiLeaks' financial problems. So it's an appropriate time to assess what we have learned so far—about Assange and alleged leaker Bradley Manning (heroes? villains?), the media's love-hate relationship with WikiLeaks and limits on civil liberties for journalists and whistleblowers.
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