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.