1) They are known to release names of people who are associated with certain organizations which ended up being fired from their jobs or chastise in their communities for doing so. So basically an organization leaning on individual's privacy.
If those people are engaged in wrongdoing then they should be fired. Wikileaks also has a harm minimization policy in place and over the course of the last few mega leaks has increasingly been more sensitive to the act of redacting the information. The last two leaks (the embassy cables and the Iraq War Logs) were fully redacted with the help of multiple expert journalists from respected newspapers. Wikileaks has also contacted the US State Department multiple times and offered them a chance to redact any information themselves. The reason only a few hundred of the embassy cables have been released thus far is that each cable is being analyzed by multiple groups (Wikileaks as well as professional journalists) to determine what information can be shared and what should censored in order to protect innocent people.
2) The organization acts as a Bolshevik in obtaining government data by hacking into their system - a true government transparency is to get the government to release the information themselves. Rather than hijacking the system by few people with probably insufficient knowledge on exactly how to release this information without violating any laws (individual privacy, etc) and the ramification that would follow it (deteriorating diplomatic relationship wary nations).
I don't know where you got this information. Wikileaks doesn't hack into anyone's system. They publish classified materials that are obtained via mail and a digital submission box. This is the equivalent of a journalist publishing classified material that he receives in a brown envelope on his doorstep. In addition, and in regards to the embassy cables, none of them were classified as Top Secret and a large portion of them were unclassified. Couple this with the fact that the documents were available on SIPRANET and accessible by almost two million government employees.
Transparency government is transparency in their own country, this organization releases information around the world that may not comply with THEIR laws of information-accessibility. Though I agree with government transparency - we must also respect the law of other countries (China, Russia, U.K, Chile, etc).
You're implying then that information such as the US accidentally abducting and torturing a German citizen should remain secret because said government does not want people to know that information? That flies in the face of holding governments accountable.
Acts of information-piracy by organizations by wikileaks like this is only gonna cause the government to tighten their control on information by making it even more inaccessible from other hackers (example: after 9/11 securities at airport increases, now more difficult to hijack plane) and the general public that request them. Protesting, demonstrations, electing transparency-candidates, introducing laws for transparency, etc is the way to go. Not acting like Bolshevik by retorting to criminal activity.
So your argument in this instance is that we shouldn't bother getting information about governmental wrongdoing because they are just going to make getting information about their future wrongdoing more difficult? Also, criminal activity? There is a large contingent of lawyers worldwide that contend that nothing about Wikileaks' activities is illegal under US law. There are statutes in most first world jurisdictions that protect the right of whistleblowers to publish information about wrong doing (classified or not). In the case of the United States, Daniel Ellsberg, was found innocent of all charges against him after he revealed the Pentagon Papers. Unlike Wikileaks, which merely publishes the information they are provided, Daniel Ellsberg actually stole the documents himself. You can't just use the phrase "criminal activity" when you feel like it.
Your statement about "revealing minor comments" indicates to me that you really haven't been following any of the information flowing out of the cables. Some of these minor stories include a risked nuclear disaster hidden from the press, multiple accounts of the US interfering with foreign judicial processes in order to protect troops or CIA agents from facing trials, the US practically writing Spain's copyright legislation, US air strikes on refugee camps, US manipulation of the Copenhagen accord, an incredible amount of information about Afghan corruption, information about the Russian government's ties to the mob, the US State Department and the CIA conducting spy operations against UN officials, etc etc etc etc etc. A scant couple of hours with the Guardian's newsblog would indicate that there is far more to these cables than "minor comments".
I don't scoff at people often, but I'll have to make an exception in this case.
