I don't even know where to begin with this.
The documents are important because not only has Wikileaks illustrated time and time again that we aren't all rainbows and sunshine, but that a lot of our rights are openly being violated.
Think about the fact that the US Government forced Amazon to drop Wikileaks from their web service. Regardless of the content of the website, the US government should not have the right to play cyber police and decide what is and isn't fit to be on the Internet, an international property. Furthermore, the fact that the government was willing to go to such measures over content that they felt was inappropriate sets a horrible precedent for policy regarding the Internet.
The whole wikileaks situation needs to be contained. The fact is, the documents that he is posting is putting a lot of good people in danger, not to mention furthering the deterioration of the view of the US and its people. Any document he might have that are considered "DECLASSIFIED" aren't that big, but can still damage the national security. If he were to post anything higher, lets say something classified as "CONFIDENTIAL" or for instance a "SECRET/TOP SECRET" document, he would be in prison faster than a drunk college chick will experiment.
No, they aren't. Did you even look at what the cables are about?
Wikileaks wrote:
The cables show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in "client states"; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.
This document release reveals the contradictions between the US’s public persona and what it says behind closed doors – and shows that if citizens in a democracy want their governments to reflect their wishes, they should ask to see what’s going on behind the scenes.
The only person in any actual danger is Assange himself for releasing these things.
http://www.lasisblog.com/2010/11/12/wikileaks-has-committed-no-crime/ wrote:
The most commonly cited statute by those who advocate prosecuting Wikileaks is Section 793(e) of the Espionage Act. In August, former Bush speechwriter Marc Theissen linked to this section in an article for the Washington Post when he wrote that Wikileaks is “a criminal enterprise” whose founder, Julian Assange, should be arrested by U.S. forces on foreign soil, international law be damned.
But this provision does not apply to those who publish information.
Section 793(e)reads “Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document…relating to the national defense…willfully communicates… the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it…hall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
As made clear in the Pentagon Papers case, the word “communicates” was never meant “to encompass publication” or to affect the press. Congress included the word “publish” in three other sections of the Act but intentionally left it out of 793. As the legislative history of this provision states, “Nothing in this Act shall…in any way to limit or infringe upon freedom of the press or of speech as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.”
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Regardless of the specificity of Section 794, there is no proof the documents have led to any harm of U.S. soldiers. Although Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said Wikileaks will have “blood on its hands,” the Pentagon later admitted, “We have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the Wikileaks documents.” Admittedly, that U.S. forces haven’t be harmed by the publication of these documents yet is not guarantee against a harm yet to come. Still, it is worth noting that despite the hysteria of the conservatives, and their predictions of disaster resulting from Wikileaks’ leaks, we know of no ramifications from the publication whatsoever.
