I think Wikileaks is hoping that over time, the repetitive anger at them becomes boring, whilst the corruption they uncover becomes the more interesting part of the story.

I suspect they are deliberately releasing only mildly embarrassing information at first as a form of innoculation so that when they get to the really damaging stuff Wikileaks itself will be old news and people will focus on the more unpleasant truths.

I appreciate that you probably hadn't seen it when you wrote the parent post, but it appears that the big Wikileaks story for today is a list of facilities that are considered critical to US security.

I'm not sure I see any corruption exposed, or any other public interest for that matter, in publishing such information openly. How can this possibly do anything except make it easier for the bad guys to cause significant damage?

If they carry on in this direction, releasing ever more sensitive information that really might have national security implications, then I can only see any public support they have deteriorating and the arguments of governments that some information must be kept secret for national security reasons being strengthened.

The end result will probably be a terrible disappointment for conspiracy theorists, reassurance to many people that most of our governments are not in fact secretly planning world domination and merely make mistakes from time to time, and a new era of locking down anything that might be considered even remotely sensitive within governments to the extent that we might even see changes in the laws that currently protect whistle-blowing that is genuinely in the public interest.

It would be an ironic, and unwelcome, legacy for Wikileaks if its big campaign ultimately resulted in more people believing in arbitrary government secrecy and tighter controls on free speech just in case anyone else as irresponsible comes along in future.