Yesterday’s release of classified State Department documents has sent the political and journalism worlds spinning – debating the impact of the leak and whether or not Wikileaks was within their legal right to release such classified information. Everyone from Hilary Clinton to Sarah Palin has an opinion and only history will tell who is right. 

But what does this leak say to and about a Facebook obsessed, tweeting, nothing-is-private generation? Is secrecy automatically a bad thing to us? How much do we value transparency? And at what cost?

We, the Obama generation have come of age during a time when “national security” was often used as a veil of deception to trample our civil rights, violate human rights through torture, spread intolerance and perpetuate a stronghold of post-9/11 fear from a Administration that ultimately lost our national trust. We felt hoodwinked and bamboozled and many of us vowed to the best of our ability to never to be “in the dark” again. 

In the meantime, over the past 5-10 years, social networking has exploded, paparazzi blogging culture has gotten more and more invasive, and almost nothing is off limits. If I want to know what kind of underwear Kim Kardashian wears, I can google it.  Who are my blind date’s friends? Time for facebook stalking. Want to see Tiger Wood’s freaked out text messages? Only one click away. And if I want to know where a total stranger was at 3 pm yesterday afternoon, FourSquare will help me out. Ultimately, I can know anything.  

But, in my house, I grew up hearing the Bible verse  “To whom much is given, much is required.” So what is required of us, a generation that knows more than ever before…about everything? And is the knowledge it ultimately worth it? 

The Wikileaks incident is a high-risk gamble. Best case scenario, no lives are lost and this leak is a win for freedom of information, government transparency, and accountability. Worst case scenario, our insatiable thirst for information – even that which serves no immediate purpose and doesn’t expose any particular wrong doing – takes us recklessly over the blurred line of secrecy into dangerous territory.  Which one will it be? 

I have my guess…but I’ll keep it a secret. 

In the meantime, it is clear that the issues of privacy, access, and confidentiality – online and off – will continue to be a great challenge of our generation.