The power devolved to councils and the presence of councillors willing to talk out means much more uncomfortable information tends to leak out of the system.

BBC: How the NHS locks away its secrets

Research recommendations have to go through a departmental approval process, meaning the decision to downgrade was reached days before the public disclosure, leaving time for the information to leak out.

FORBES: Tipping The Shorts

So what's involved here, Jim, is that this document from the government says that the vice president informed Mr. Libby that the president himself had authorized Mr. Libby to leak certain information or give out certain information that came out of this document, this National Intelligence Estimate, on what the intelligence community thought Iraq had in the way of weapons of mass destruction.

CNN: Ensor: Lowdown on documents in CIA leak case

As with diplomats, companies do not earn trust by using every interaction with a consumer to profile them, much less by storing that information in a database that can, and often does, leak out.

FORBES: The Privacy Lessons in the Latest Wikileaks Data Dump

Regardless of the repercussions for U.S. Armed Forces and political leaders that will come out of this sudden dose of involuntary transparency, the leak should serve as another reminder for the information security community: Chinese cyberspies or Eastern European cybercriminals may threaten your data.

FORBES: Wikileaks Reveals The Biggest Classified Data Breach In History