[yinmoneyhuang]

The State Department seems to have mistargeted its restrictions concerning the documents disclosed by WikiLeaks. In particular, prohibiting members of the public (such as the SIPA students) from discussing the documents serves no purpose. Insofar as the documents have become generally available, the State Department is now powerless to prevent the spread of any damaging information contained in those materials.

By contrast, restrictions would make sense for current government employees. Because a significant fraction of those employees have access to materials whose secrecy is still intact, it is conceivable that discussion of the already-leaked materials could lead an employee to let slip additional classified information.