Not that I am disagreeing with you (nor agreeing with you for that matter), but when people throw out the word "Right", I like to ask them for their source.

Where is it written that the public has a right to know specific details about what their government does?

The whole concept of a representative government is so that the public does not need to know all the details. The public elects representatives and these representatives are empowered by the public to make decisions on behalf of the citizens. If the decisions are not in agreement with the citizens, in a representative government, the citizens can elect someone else. But I am not aware of any policy that allows the public to know specific details of what the government does, especially when it comes to national security.

So why do you think the public has a "right" to know everything that their government does?

A desire to know, sure. But really a "right"?

But is exposing things governments don't make available to us justified when the exposing puts at direct risk serving men and women or people working for us, eg informants in Afghanistan?

The idea behind wikileaks is laudable but only in a perfect world. He is being holier than thou with no thought for the people he could be endagering.

As for what ambassadors think about Brown or Cameron I don't care, though I did take a little afrontage over the remarks about keeping the UK govt. hanging about the so called special relationship.

It looks like the guy tried to get specifics on who he'd be putting at risk so he could make sure what he released didn't threaten them but the government continued to whine to try and stop him from releasing everything. So I'm gonna go with the stuff released not actually putting anybody in danger just the government trying to get the peasants on their side against him.

Ummm, how does secrecy in government in any way have anything to do with the difference between a dictatorship and a democracy?

Honestly, are you suggesting that all American citizens be allowed to, say, know the deployment of our special forces at all times?

The public does NOT have any right to know everything the government does - I'm not sure where you've gleaned said "right" from, but it does not exist. We, in the US, elect our officials with implicit trust to do what is in our best interest, INCLUDING when it is in our best interests to not know.

Obviously there are limits to this, but complete transparency would be foolish - in fact, should we be completely transparent, we would be exceptionally vulnerable to destruction. Then where does your non-existant "right" to complete transparency come from?

Ultimately, the wisdom of classification is that the public rightly doesn't trust itself.

Who should you be mad at? The government that does the shady and rotten things that endanger its troops or citizens? Or the person who brings it out in the open?

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, electric light the best policeman.

Horsecrap.

This person didn't just bring specific cases to light - he leaked EVERYTHING he could get his hands on, in the hopes that such cases would be scrutinized.

The sad truth is that the public can't always grasp an entire situation, or, the public can't handle the truth in an entire situation. I do NOT agree with everything my government does, but i do understand and agree with on why some things should not by privy to the public domain.

Because doing so will either
a.) puts lives at risk.
b.) Puts the mission at risk, (militarily speaking), which in turn could cause a cascade of loss of life, or national security
c.) Will cause a public panic.
d.) All of the above.

Neither. I am mad at the person who was authorized access to this information and illegally gave it to wikileaks.

Wikieaks does not have a legal responsibility to safeguard classified information. They may have a moral responsibility but that is for another discussion.

The people who do have legal access to this information do have a legal responsibility to safeguard this information. The ones that betrayed their oath are the criminals and I hope they get caught.

The Obama Admin is reportedly trying closed the barn door after the horses have fled, when it has become obvious that Bush couldn't be blamed for the incompetance of the last 21 months..

As Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, so arrogantly put it (but it's true in this case)

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

I can understand and agree on some level with this line of thinking.

I'm not talking about some kind of legal right that's written in your laws. Just about a symbolic one.

But how can the citizens know these decisions are not in agreement with them, if these decisions are not known?

The government makes decisions on behalf of its citizens. The government is chosen by those same citizens. Now if you remove the ability for those citizens to know what the government does, how can the government be a truthful representative of the citizens? It can't.
One of the requisites of democracy is this ability to know about the actions of the government. Because voting is based upon these actions. Remove this ability, and you remove the ability to truthfully vote.

Furthermore, the deployment of troops or the execution of military commands is not on the government level.
If the government would release any details on military operations, yes, the military would be at risk. But the government generally doesn't make those detailed plans, the military does. The government tells the army "Invade Iraq", "Kill Bin Laden" etc.
I think the public should know whether or not for example a war is imminent. This way they have the opportunity to oppose against it if it's not according to their wishes.

If a government-issued command endangers an operation, I think such information can and should be withheld - UNTIL the end of the operation. When the operation is completed this government-issued command should be released to the public, so they can form their own opinion about it.

Example: Obama decides Ahmadinejad should be killed. He commands this to the CIA.
Up until now, the public shouldn't know about it. If it does, Ahmadinejad can be tipped off and go into hiding.
The CIA sends a kill squad to Iran and shoots the target.
When the target is dead, it should be revealed that it was done by the CIA, or at least that the CIA had an ongoing operation to kill him. If the public is dead against the assassination, they can oppose it by for example not re-electing Obama.

Exactly:up:

In day to day life, that's something i live by. However, the way the world works beyond our daily lives, beyond our borders...... it's not always so black and white. Sometimes the best answer is in a shade of gray. That's just how it is, and not everyone can accept or handle that.

that is really a bad quote
a better quote would be "we have elected officials to keep us from thinking, thats what they are for"-homer simpson

there are things that they keep away from us for our own good.
Anyways, i am sure that there are things that do that you really don't want the rest of us to know. That doesn't keep you from doing things that you don't want me to know about.

Just like us, the government has it's rights to secrecy too

Because...

a) Julian Assange is neither American, nor resident there
b) most of the WikiLeaks staff are Swedish or Icelandic
c) WikiLeaks is hosted in Sweden, which is not part of the United States, and is in fact a sovereign foreign country - you'll find it in any US atlas, marked "Here Be Dragons"

I would really like to know how any of the information they have released could result in anything more serious than severe embarrassment. Let's have a handful of examples showing the mortal consequences we're constantly warned of - actually, let's see if you can find one verified instance of an American croaking as a direct result of WikiLeak's uncomfortable revelations over the last year or so.

How the hell the a bunch of swedish dudes without government support succeed at doing something that KIm Jiong Il and the KGB failed?
This guys gets tonnes of secret files, and ridicules the US
I suspect this guy is making most of the S**t up, since we can't see the originals anyways, we don't know if its true or not

also, I suspect this guy is affiliated with a big company like blackwater, or a government