What WikiLeaks leaks mean to the rest of us

Being a tech journalist makes for interesting days. I often wake up early and lie in bed, BlackBerry in hand, mulling over a constantly shifting landscape of topics. I narrow 'em down to the ones that jazz me most, and more importantly that I think will jazz readers. Then I put the pitch together, fire it off to my editors, and wait.

My wife, bless her, puts up with this tech-driven restlessness.

Some of my favorite topics are the ones that stick in my head for days, weeks or even months on end. WikiLeaks, a web site that publishes anonymously submitted, leaked documents, has been bouncing around the back of my brain for much of the year. I've commented extensively on it, but had kept my pen down until this week, after the site released some 77,000 "Iraq War Diaries" files. It dawned on me in the early morning darkness that this wasn't just about the military. It was about us.

Yahoo! Canada published my resulting article, WikiLeaks leak a wakeup call for business, today. A nice way to end the writing week, no? I hope you enjoy the read.

Your turn: Is WikiLeaks heroic or villainous?