So if that is the way the world works, what of note have they accomplished, aside from drawing the ire of the US government and getting a leader martyred, their finances blockaded, and a barrage of at-best ambivalent media attention?

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down. Change doesn't happen because a few activists angrily demand it; it happens because of huge cultural shifts in the minds of millions.

This is the model Wikileaks had at the beginning - and no one cared and things didn't change.

That just isn't true. Read through this list, up to 2010.[0] WL can get things done more subtly. It may not attract huge mainstream headlines that way, but that's fine. It should be amassing influence over years or decades, because that's the way real successful institutions start out. Not everyone is on Internet time--certainly not governments.

So: Either you editorialize and embargo stuff and work together with media organizations. Or you don't - and no whistleblower will ever give you stuff anymore, because it's just not going to change anything.

I believe there's a happy medium here, but if WL is your model of media cooperation, you may want to look elsewhere, since WL has not exactly been a good citizen from their perspectives.[1]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_published_by_WikiLe...

[1] http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/12/wikileaks-stil...