I would like to say however that I am on the side that believes that some illegal acts move democracy forward, I just don't believe that the Manning dump did that, primarily on the basis of not having revealed illegal behavior. As your other post notes it did add a bit to the torture debate (I had previously not known this), but I personally think that the added info wasn't worth the damage to DoS operations, but drawing that line is clearly a fuzzy process.
If you didn't know about the Gitmo thing, which was a very prominent part of the leak that took me literally 10 minutes to discover today by using Wikipedia, what else might you be missing in your understanding of the leak? How can you conclude that it didn't "move democracy forward" without having a strong understanding of its contents?
I know I won't be able to draw a conclusion about the helpfulness of the leak to democracy without much, much more study.
That was not the point of my post. I did not say or imply that that illegal activities were unmasked by the Manning dump.
I am saying that your prediction that people who think the Manning dump moved democracy forward necessarily believe that basically all secrecy is bad is unhelpful to a conversation about what the whistleblowing laws should be. For instance, some people may think that US foreign policy should all be public while domestic criminal investigations can be private. Some people might believe that the Manning dump was illegal but that some illegal activities (like lunch-counter sit-ins or suffragettes chaining themselves to the White House fence) move democracy forward.