The Collateral Damage leaks greatly reduced the credibility of the US military as a worldwide humanist agent.
The alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime was used as a justification for a full blown invasion of Syria; yet the political push back was too strong and the attacks were reduced to air strikes. Thank you Wikileaks for publishing the cables showing how US had plans in motion to topple Assad since a very long time.
But more importantly people are beginning to question their government and that is a good thing.
I agree with some of what you said, directionally - some people are more aware of their privacy. Some people have also tuned out the arguments because they appear to be noise. It’s also hard to judge something when we don’t know effect size, or even if it was causal, however.
Many of your points are good examples and I appreciate you posting them.
"Simple people talk about people. Common people talk about events. Highly intelligent people talk about ideas."
Government transparency is necessary to prevent a never-ending dark age of fascism and suffering. Organizations like Wikileaks support democracy and thereby support human progress.
Assange is not a nice person and that doesn't matter. Julian Assange started and ran Wikileaks, and thereby contributed massively to the welfare of humanity.