Listen. Do you want to know a secret?
A short brainstorm on the role of secrecy in the modern world.
Let's take a few items as read before we start.
1. Governments operate on a system of security by obscurity.
In other words, by not telling you how things work, they expect you not be able to break them. This is the same basis as, for example, Microsoft and Apple take when they release software. By only letting you know of the vectors and methods you're supposed to use, they hope to maintain the core functionality free from your unwanted interference. In Apple's case, it kind of works but Apple are a bit like Scientology - anyone who buys into Apple products and the associated cultism is likely to fetishize their shiny crap too much to actively try to subvert it. It doesn't work so well for Microsoft because, and this is important, when they are not brainwashed cultists, a few individuals will always find a way around the system.
2. Governments and their associated agencies are really amazingly good at breaking security by obscurity.
We could, in fact, easily equate intelligence agencies with the hackers and crackers who regularly rip huge gaping holes in Windows security were it not for the fact the Intelligence Agencies are actually organized and massively funded. A basic tenet of post Cold War/Internet Era espionage is "we know they know what we know and they know we know what they know". In other words the major powers are all fully aware that all the other major powers know exactly what they're up to; to the point where it can even become embarrassing for all parties - break out the poisoned sushi - when somebody slips and misses a secret they're expected to know.
3. Since governments aren't really hiding things from each other anymore, they're really only hiding them from Agents of Change.
Agents of Change is a catch-all term. Anyone who is not an integral part of The Way Things Work is potentially an Agent of Change and therefore, not to be trusted. Some journalists, for example (although not those employed by such agencies as ClearChannel, Pravda or News Corporation, obviously). Students are highly susceptible to be becoming Agents of Change. In liberal societies, religious fundamentalists are potentially Agents of Change. In conservative societies, they're often not but their religion means they do not hold a statist allegiance and are therefore certainly not to be trusted. Terrorists/Freedom fighters/Protesters of all sorts are active Agents of Change. Check out FitWatch for examples of how, for example, the police in the UK deal with and regard any kind of protester.
POLITICIANS CAN NEVER BE AGENTS OF CHANGE AS THEY ARE PARTS OF THE SYSTEM.
You are potentially an agent of change. Therefore, you are not to be trusted. Therefore, the security by obscurity is largely implemented as a defence against you, collectively, individually and personally.
And this is why WikiLeaks is under attack. "People will die because of these leaks" - not true. In no case so far has it been shown to be true and for pretty obvious reasons. Some apologists say things like "Now China knows all about [$whatever]". China already knew and that was fine because China is not a threat. Short of another revolution, China will never be an Agent of Change.
But you might. And now that you know things, now that you know DynCorp uses taxpayers' money to procure thirteen year old boys to literally sell their sexual services to old men at parties, now that you know that Hillary Clinton orders diplomats to spy, now that you know that so much of what they told you was "National Security" was simply ass-covering by incompetents, you're even more likely to become an Agent of Change.
You might want to be prepared for how they'll react to that.