Exactly. Like I said in the last thread, if you come into the possession of classified documents from a democratically-elected government then it is ethical to publish them if and only if they provide evidence of criminal activity on the part of government officials.
So Watergate? Right on. Random dumps of sensitive information? Not so much.
The government of Iraq was democratically elected before it was taken down.
Same with the Guatemala one.
Haider was democratically elected in Austria.
Some of those you could defend, some you could not, which ones you will defend probably depends on your viewpoint.
What your viewpoint is however does not matter in the longer term, democratically elected governments are not immune from perpetrating illegal acts (and the US has a pretty good share of the world market there).
You now get the good with the bad, which I think is preferable to getting just lies and spin.
It was, it may not have been a democratic election by your standards, but then again, the US elections are not democratic by mine.
edit: hacker news, the only site where your candid opinion (an unpopular one, apparently) will get you modded down.
Look here, if you think that the US has democratic elections I would suggest you have a long hard look at Sweden, which has a much less money and dynasty focused system, and which comes a lot closer to being truly democratic. Two parties are just as bad as one, especially when to foreigners those two parties are pretty much indistinguishable except op a few unimportant issues which seem to be added just to polarize the voters.
I'd like to point at my own country but unfortunately they're currently not the best example.
So Watergate? Right on. Random dumps of sensitive information? Not so much.