1. The actual leaks that WikiLeaks have published have virtually all targetted the Obama administration, so I'm not sure how you suppose the leaks have previously been making the "other team" look bad. By most accounts, Obama and Clinton are on the same "team."
2a. I don't see how you could seriously suggest that WikiLeaks's behavior in this election is no different than what they had done previously.
2b. If you can find me an example when WikiLeaks published stolen emails from people within a presidential campaign, and then published those emails during the campaign for the avowed purpose of influencing the election, I'd be interested to hear it. I'd be even more interested if you could find evidence that I supported it.
3. True, they're clearly trying to reduce government secrecy by making is harder to keep things secret. But what does this have to do with my question, which was how does this help promote free dissent? And I think you're overlooking the fact that they are also undermining private citizens' secrecy, when they see fit to publish their emails.
You must be living in some sort of alternate reality, because the leaks that gained WikiLeaks its infamy[1] occurred in 2010, during the Obama Administration. After that, there was another long series of leaks during 2011-2015 [2], which included the complete draft of the TPP (of which Obama was in favor).
Furthermore, WikiLeaks used to carefully comb through documents and leak only those that would not cause personal harm. They did no such thing with the most recent leaks during the election season. Some of the emails they leaked contained personal information of donors, including home addresses and social security numbers. That's grossly irresponsible. It was clear they had a partisan political agenda that went above and beyond anti-secrecy in government.
At what point did Wikileaks ever scan their releases for personal information? This is completely false. They never have, nor is it feasible to, they just don't have the manpower to do so. That's a major argument against Wikileaks, that it has released names of ops, contacts, and soldiers in the past, far before this election.
What people don't seem to understand is they don't have the manpower or time to go through everything they receive. The bad comes with the good, which is why there are legitimate arguments either way.
There are a lot of people who believe that Wikileaks is compromised and that Assange is captured. There are also some who believe this to be some conspiracy theory.
The people who believe the former are waiting on Proof of Life, and do not believe they have gotten it.
The subreddit /r/WhereIsAssange/ has been going on about it since he went offline around mid-October. Of course, the discussion there is mixed, and conversation is starting to turn towards him still being in the embassy.
The point being that it is possible that Wikileaks is compromised and that could explain the parent's observation of changed behavior.
