That’s a whistleblower in the purest form:  discovering government secrets of criminal and corrupt acts and then publicizing them to the world not for profit, not to give other nations an edge, but to trigger “worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms.”  That’s the person that Adrian Lamo informed on and risked sending to prison for an extremely long time.

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The reason this story matters so much — aside from the fact that it may be the case that a truly heroic, 22-year-old whistle-blower is facing an extremely lengthy prison term — is the unique and incomparably valuable function WikiLeaks is fulfilling.  Even before the Apache helicopter leak, I wrote at length about why they are so vital, and won’t repeat all of that here.  Suffice to say, there are very few entities, if there are any, which pose as much of a threat to the ability of governmental and corporate elites to shroud their corrupt conduct behind an extreme wall of secrecy.

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Any rational person would have to acknowledge that government secrecy in rare cases is justifiable and that it’s possible for leaks of legitimate secrets to result in serious harm. I’m not aware of a single instance where any leak from WikiLeaks has done so, but it’s certainly possible that, at some point, it might. But right now, the scales are tipped so far in the other direction — toward excessive, all-consuming secrecy — that the far greater danger comes from allowing that to fester and grow even more. It’s not even a close call. Any efforts to subvert that secrecy cult are commendable in the extreme, and nobody is doing that as effectively as WikiLeaks (and their value is not confined to leaking, as they just inspired a serious effort to turn Iceland into a worldwide haven for investigative journalism and anonymous whistle-blowers).
Glenn Greenwald, “case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks“, Salon, June 18th, 2010