After a Hiatus...Wiki Leaks??

Hey everyone, a lot of stuff went down in my life, for the worst. I've gotten myself into some trouble, and haven't had time or urge to post... But I'm trying to get over it. Any who...Over the past few days, I've been trying to distract myself by keeping up on one HELL of an interesting story. Julian Assange and the Wikileaks has been a topic on controversy over the past few months, but only during the last week has it really exploded. Apparently many countries haven't been so forthcoming with they're true feeling. Like a teacher reading notes being passed around during class, aloud, Wikileaks has released many documents that give us an inside peek into gossip relating to countries and how they really feel about their surrounding neighbors. So was Julian right about releasing these documents? Do we have a right to know? How far should we take this thirst for knowledge? While I do support freedom of speech, and the right for the public to know what's being said by its own government, I can't help but feel some things are kept secret for a reason. While this case may not be the deciding factor that will cause years and years of calamity and pain, the next time someone may release documents or information that really is sensitive. Like I said, I think this series of Wikileaks is pretty harmless, at most some strained relations between countries, I don't think Assange should have been arrested, nor the wikileaks site taken down, atleast in regards to the leaks, the other allegations about sex crimes, are fair game, and should indeed be followed up. But as for the primary allegations of the information being released, I just dont' see it being all that threatening. What I think is happening, is that countries, and governments are seeing that information can be spread and leaked at lightening speed, and that very little is actually able to be kept secret. This, I believe is why everyone's so up in arms. That being said, freedom of information does have a point where I'd draw the line, and say, just because you can release documents, doesn't mean that you should. What do you guys think? What I was thinking about earlier was that, do you think this would have happened if the internet wasn't around? Obviously the site wikileaks wouldn't exist, but would a newspaper have been willing to publish these messages, if this was back say, in the 1970's? Chime in, let me know what you think, and I'll try to get updates back on track, at a more regular pace. Bare with me though!

Here's a surprisingly subtle defense of Julian Assange, from Ron Paul... I didn't expect that..

"In a free society we're supposed to know the truth,” Paul insisted. “In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it."
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/ron-paul-what-wikileaks/

That being said, what of, Bradley Manning? Months ago, he released (maybe?) to Wikileaks a video of a gunship killing Iraqi civilians. This sparked massive outrage and really painted a target on Wikileak's back. Does Manning deserve pain of death, or should we be praising him as a provider of truth? My opinion on this is split almost 50/50...