Wikileaks: Is it Good or Bad for Society?

Should a person that reveals State secrets be charged with a crime, even when those State secrets reveal that the State has been lying to its own people?

Internet news leads me to believe that many Americans think government whistle-blowers should be prosecuted, even sentenced to a death penalty, for disobeying orders and revealing government secrets.  But I think the punishment and the degree of punishment is not so simple to determine.  Each incident needs to be based on its own factors, not on an overly generic precedent.

I do believe that conservatives are quick to recommend harsh punishment for information exposed that shows conservative government officials behaving badly.  But liberals are equally perturbed when leaks expose liberal officials breaking the rules.

I believe that most people understand that most of these leaks have both good and bad elements to them.  So many of the stories we hear represent the extreme positions, suggesting the leak is either something 100% good or something 100% evil.  But I suspect, and truly hope, that many Americans understand that it is not all or nothing. 

I think it is good when the people learn that their government have been violating their own laws and blatantly lying about it.  The people need to be reminded that every person and every organization, including the government, needs a watchdog.

From an article in the May 2, 1833 edition of The Virginia Free Press and Farmers' Repository:

“... ‘eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.’ Let the sentinels on the watch-tower sleep not, and slumber not.”

So what do we do with those who leak the secrets?  The answer is, "It depends".  Consider two extreme examples,
1) If a leak revealed the location an hour of the assaults upon Adolf Hitler just days before they were launched, the person leaking the information should face the harshest punishment
2) If a leak revealed that the President was selling military technology to the enemy for personal gain, I think the person leaking the information should face only a minor fine, perhaps of one dollar, to show that the disobedience and revealing secrets is not generally condoned, especially when that person has taken an oath to not reveal secrets.

Wikileaks is not wholly bad.  I believe the site should continue to exist to help facilitate the exposure of politicians that scam their own people.  The information revealed on the site to the public may have damaging consequences for the governments exposed, but those governments should understand the risks of those exposures when they engage in illegal activities.