I previously described the WikiLeaks event as consequence free. Carne Ross disagrees, going so far as to predict that this might result in a violent revolution in Egypt.

The presumption that governments can conduct their business in secret with one another, out of sight of the populations they represent, died this week. Diplomats and officials around the world are slowly realizing that anything they say may now be one day published on the Internet...

If a government as technically sophisticated and well protected as the US can suffer a breach of this magnitude, no government is safe...

The only way for governments to save their credibility is to end that divide and at last to do what they say, and vice versa, with the assumption that nothing they may do will remain secret for long. The implications of this shift are profound, and indeed historic.

And not necessarily good, if the result is merely a decrease in the candor of international dialog.

Carne Ross: The End of Diplomacy As We Know It