On November 29, CPD launched WikiLeaks: America's Cablegate Media Monitor which tracks global and domestic media coverage of the U.S. diplomatic cables leaked on November 28, 2010.

If WikiLeaks's latest data dump is the equivalent of distributing photocopies of America's Burn Book, would that make Hillary Clinton the Regina George of international relations?

So we have another WikiLeaks release, and this time it's secret diplomatic cables. So far the interesting material is on Arab states' and America's relationships with Iran. It seems all those fervid background-only reports of Arab states urging America to bomb Iran, which I mistrusted at the time, were true.

The secret diplomatic cables revealed by WikiLeaks have the potential to annoy governments around the world, and to inform (and even titillate) the rest of us. But are such leaks useful to the public, and do they bring real freedom of information any closer?

The whistleblower’s latest document dump exposes Saudi Arabia’s plot against Iran, a corrupt Afghan’s $52 million payday, Putin and Berlusconi’s “bromance,” and more. See nine of the most startling details.

Except, I have yet to see anything in the reporting on these documents that show's the U.S. government engaged in any behavior that would upset the great mass of the American public. In a statement to the press today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made this same point, rather directly.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, today gave the administration's first public reaction to the leaking of thousands of confidential diplomatic documents, describing it as an attack not only on the US but the international community.

Do they threaten US national security or are they simply a US national embarrassment? One test is to see if the cables show a secret diplomacy that is at serious odds with the public.