Good point, Don. One of the things I value about the 'Cat is that people often offer thoughtful different perspectives.

Thanks for the additional links Lox.

That may be, Q. I'm often slow to make up my mind. But let him be locked up on the correct charges. I'm not quite ready to assume there is nothing to the rape charges, but he shouldn't be tried on rape charges in order to punish him for leaking the classified documents.

And yes....I know that is not the real world.

What is apparent to me is that societies are going to have to come to terms with all the implications of the modern internet. Assange may or may not deserve to be locked up for the leaks. However, locking him up will not stop such leaks.

Wikileaks did, in effect, vet and redact some information available to them before general release, giving the US government a heads-up and also giving the information in advance to several responsible news organizations. Given that such leaks will continue, even if Wikileaks in general, and Assange in particular were "shut down," so to speak, it would be much more balanced to also release secret diplomatic cables and correspondence from other governments, including, but certainly not limited to China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, etc. That is less likely to happen simply because we do have a more open and transparent government than many of these countries, and therefore less control. Leaks such as have occurred could result in Western democracies becoming less democratic and more secretive - more controlling and repressive in the absence of similar release of classified information from some other countries such as I listed above. I think one should consider that.

Under current USA law, any government employee who is discovered to have passed information is likely to find themselves in prison for a long time. In less free countries, that person would find themselves much more likely to be shot or "disappeared," along with their families.

Unbridled freedom = chaos.

Absolute order = absolute repression.

I don't know where the fulcrum is, but I do know there is real danger to our freedoms in more-or-less stable democracies if such breaches of classified information continues to be confined to only the USA or other democracies.

On the other hand, given the realities of globalization, overpopulation and diminishing resources, democracy may become politically and sociologically obsolete as a strategy for the survival of "tribes", or even the species.

I envy all of you on either side of this issue who have such passionate certainty.