text: opinion, the Wikileaks experience proves the advantages of Open Data. 
  
  Was Wikileaks right to publish the cable? Were the specific facts and behaviors uncovered by 
  
  Cablegate right or wrong? The answer to these questions are outside the scope of this document. 
  
  Here we only wish to point out that Cablegate and Wikileaks, at least in the form we've known them 
  
  so far, have been about: 
  
  •  reacting to problems*after*they occurred 
  
  • without any intervention and involvement of the parties and organizations that may have 
  
  behaved improperly 
  
  Open Data, instead, is about*prevention*of errors, abuses and inefficiencies, through conscious and 
  
  continuous collaboration of citizens and governments officials*during*day to day operations, if not 
  
  before their beginning. 
  
  Of course, citizens must always check that they aren't getting incomplete or biased data. But in any 
  
  case, Open Data means that the involved government officials aren't just prepared to see that data 
  
  published, they know and accept it from the start. In such a context, some risks associated to 
  
  Wikileaks, like the fact that the leaker lacks the means to influence the downstream use of the 
  
  information, and therefore may harm anybody connected to the linked information, are almost non- 