What was it that WikiLeaks did that aroused so much consternation and condemnation? It wasn't simply that WikiLeaks provided "secret" information that the State was determined to keep from public view. It wasn't even that WikiLeaks provided a huge amount of such information. It was that WikiLeaks provided masses of "raw data": the original documents themselves, whether they be battle reports, inter- or intra-agency communications, or documents of many other kinds, sometimes with redactions, often complete. And WikiLeaks offered them with no filters whatsoever: no one was going to hold our hand as we read the documents, telling us what was "important" and what wasn't, and what its significance was, or whether it was significant at all. If we wished to understand the documents and what they revealed, all of us had to do the work ourselves. What we discovered was that many people didn't want to do the work. More than that, they resented the fact that such responsibility was demanded of them. They wanted some "authority" figure to explain it all to them, they wanted "experts" to tell them what it meant.
Silber's critique of the methodology behind the Snowden leaks (without criticizing their content) is important reading.