[hugh3]

"Does the leaked stuff pose a national security risk or does it pose a national security embarrassment over basic human rights violations, waste, carelessness and so on?"

I have no idea, I haven't seen the leaked stuff. But where diplomacy is concerned the line between "embarrassment" and "risk" is pretty thin, especially where the embarrassment is to another country. There could easily be things like candid discussions of personal weaknesses of foreign dignitaries, diplomatic tricks played to fool other countries into doing things, invoices for the hookers they hired to entertain the Saudi ambassador... if these sorts of things become public they could turn allies into enemies, and that's not good for anyone.