It has been my experience that whistleblowers are motivated by the public interest, while leakers are motivated by private interests, which may or may not serve the public good. WikiLeaks, which uses anonymous electronic drop boxes to obtain material, more than likely does not have a clue where the information is coming from, or why it is being leaked.
Indeed, a foreign and unfriendly government could hack the U.S. Government's computers, retrieve classified or other sensitive information, and drop the information in a WikiLeaks drop box, for the sole purpose of damaging the United States. Or, one company might hack into a competitor's computers, and use WikiLeaks to damage the competition.
Given WikiLeaks's apparent hostile feelings toward any and all secrecy, and given the system by which they obtain leaks from unknown and unknowable sources -- a fact that they boast will protect sources -- this operation is something of a growing disaster in progress.
While WikiLeaks has the potential for doing great good, it also has the potential for causing great harm. We must all hope that those who have joined Julian Assange in this effort might develop a meaningful set of criteria for what they will and will not publish, and then actually honor those standards.
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