hmm, lots of FUD on this thread..
1. Most of you dolts wouldn't know a politically significant diplomatic cable from a length of CAT5, please try and do some reading before posting.
2. Those saying they haven't seen anything important, consider for a moment your news sources may have been censored, please look at other news sites, possibly in other countries, before you say you didn't see anything. For instance, there are certain leaks that have consistently NOT been mentioned on the BBC.
3. We are seeing US data because that's what was leaked to Wikileaks. If someone leaks data from some other place, we will probably see that too. Wikileaks can only publish what it receives from leakers.
4. Obviously, if there is nothing to see in the cables, the USG wouldn't care that we see them. However, they do care.
5. If Wikileaks is taken offline and Julian Assange and friends shot by firing squad, it won't matter - there will be a replacement site online before long. Wikileaks is just filling a need - shutting it down will not remove this need.
6. Folks chat about brand damage to Amazon and Paypal from being associated with Wikileaks and that is probably what motivated their managements, however these companies seem to have forgotten their customers are the very people who will benefit from these disclosures, and that by making life hard for Wikileaks they are in turn making life hard for their customers. Customers who notice this are likely to make a fuss, as we have seen on this thread already.
7. Isn't it great just when those big bad-assed companies like Apple and Google were starting to get some kind of cult following, along comes an in-your-face reminder that corporates don't love you, not even a little bit, and you should watch your back if you are even a little bit dependent on them.
8. The academic theory concerning transparency in government, disclosure processes, whistleblower protection laws etc has all been written, it's unfortunate for the USG they did not have the infrastructure in place to allow this information to be disclosed in a correct manner. To have some PFY up on treason charges because the system permitted access, and then lacked a disclosure mechanism, through which he could take his concerns in a lawful manner, is shameful.
9. It's a delight that this incident has introduced a whole new generation of users to concepts of online activism. I note several "freejulian" domainnames have already been registered. I imagine that the free Kevin et al campaigns of the 90's will seem miniscule by comparison, not only because the number of internet users is so much larger, and not just because the issues are more pertinent, but because once the facebook and twitter crowd get the idea that the USG is restricting their lulz, they are going to use all their shiny new social networking tools to protest, and that is in turn, going to generate a whole new crop of hackers and cypherpunks.
In the end, there's not much the USG can do. It sowed these seeds, now it must reap them. If it did not want to have this bother, it should have conducted itself in an entirely different manner. This was not done and there is unfortunately nobody else to blame.