
Don't Take Sides, Take Issues (How To Think About Wikileaks) - joshfraser
http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com/2010/12/dont-take-sides-take-issues-how-to.html
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pedalpete
Isn't the 'crime' that Assange purchased/published stolen material?

In the end, does any of this really matter? has there been anything on
Wikileaks which exposed mass injustice and therefore we can attempt to
overlook the fact that this man published confidential gov't information which
was received illegally.

I'm surprised that all the media is focused on Assange, who is really just a
distributor of the data gathered by Bradley Manning.

At the same time, the whole thing is very sad. Manning is in a whole heap of
trouble and I suspect will spend much of his remaining life in a US military
prison. Assange has people threatening his life and governments after him. And
in the end, for what? This isn't Watergate (unless I'm missing something).
They aren't Woodward, Bernstein and DeepThroat, even if that was their initial
goal.

They should have looked at the materials they received, measured the influence
those materials would have had to make the world a better place, and then
decided on an action.

Instead they bragged to the world that they had managed to gather all this
'confidential' material, and possibly ruined both of their lives in the
process. I'm sure we'll all remember Assange, Manning seems to have already
been forgotten by most, and the only thing that will change is the
intelligence community will get smarter about hiding their 'secrets'.

