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"Surprise, surprise" said the Russian ambassador at the UN when my colleague threw him a question about US diplomats spying on officials there.

Officialdom in the US is less amused by the Wikileaks. The White House says that those responsible are "first and foremost criminals". One Republican congressman wants Wikileaks classified as a foreign terrorist organisation. Hillary Clinton says the people responsible are not brave, but potentially responsible for the imprisonment, torture and death of others.

The secretary of state offered no evidence that any of the cables put intelligence sources or human rights campaigners at risk, and I can't see any in those published so far.

But it is clear America's top diplomat, an insider for many years, who knows all about the private becoming public, finds it distasteful, as well as difficult, that the curtain has been ripped aside. She said it was an attack, not on America, but on the international community which undermines diplomats ability to work with other countries, that tears at the fabric of the function of proper government.

She went on to say that whether in journalism, or law, or business we all need confidential communications. It is true of course. In any organisation people have frank conversations that would create problems if they were broadcast to a wider world. This is exactly the sort of arguments we've had before about Freedom of Information laws.

Part of the current difficulty is adjusting to the dominance of electronic media. It has always been a rule of thumb observed by the wise and cautious that some things just shouldn't be written down. Now it seems sensible not to put anything in an e-mail that you wouldn't be happy seeing on the front page of a newspaper.

But is Hillary Clinton on too high a high horse here? Should we respect the privacy of government so it can do its business? Are we in danger of cloaking natural curiosity and a right to know? Or should we indulge the instinct to find out what they are saying in our name?

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