US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment | Simon Jenkins

It is for governments – not journalists – to guard public secrets, and there is no national jeopardy in WikiLeaks' revelations

Is it justified? Should a newspaper disclose virtually all a nation's secret diplomatic communication, illegally downloaded by one of its citizens? The reporting in the Guardian of the first of a selection of 250,000 US state department cables marks a recasting of modern diplomacy. Clearly, there is no longer such a thing as a safe electronic archive, whatever...