The key point to me is: this information was already stolen and in the hands of god-knows what parties. Certainly there's an argument to be made on the optimal

The key point to me is: this information was already stolen and in the hands of god-knows what parties. Certainly there's an argument to be made on the optimal outcome for the individuals concerned. Which is worse? Their stolen information being traded invisibly on a darknet, or publicly visible on Wikileaks? However, as a separate argument, I'd hold very strongly to the idea that Wikileak's publication of information is good for society as a whole. (Aka the no-public-release vs full-disclosure security debate of the 90s) As the Target and Home Depot breaches demonstrated, corporations don't give a damn about their customer's privacy - only the revenue that might be lost by losing goodwill. And only by keeping these incidents in the news for long enough will it hurt severely enough to be taken seriously.