Maybe against corporations and individuals, but not the information is pertinent to governments (domestic or abroad).
Plus they'd be admitting to crimes in most cases. There is a reason they need a mouthpiece. Corruption found illegally is still corruption.
And do you believe today's media would properly report the info from Wikileaks if it were coming from the individual "hacker/leaker's" mouth?
C'mon, take partisan politics out of it. The citizens of a nation (especially the US) have the right to know if their elected officials, or those appointed by them, are doing corrupt shit.
We need to get out of the mindset that "We work for the Govt." and return to the fact that "the Govt. works for us."
Wikileaks is a way to keep elected officials accountable... and that USED to be the media's job w/ investigative journalism.
We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
If the information comes from Wikileaks, there is no guarantee it is accurate.
If Julian Assange is finding/reporting corruption he's doing it illegally which makes him a criminal. What's more, he is a profiteer. Who is to say he does not manipulate the truth in order to increase his audience? If the whistle blowers are too cowardly to come forward on their own, it is highly unlikely they would call Assange on inaccuracies. If they did, they'd lose their anonymity. You don't trust the media. Why trust Assange? He too is in the media business.
How this issue related to the mindset you mentioned, eludes me. If people don't know that the public is government's "employer" they are clearly misinformed. There are however government employees and they are many.