The authorities have nothing to fear. There is a deeper problem with the notion of Assange having a 'dead man's switch'. Imagine that in the crown jewels of Wi

The authorities have nothing to fear. There is a deeper problem with the notion of Assange having a 'dead man's switch'. Imagine that in the crown jewels of Wikileaks secret secrets there is some hypothetical document proving that a senior government figure was directly responsible for a high profile murder. The family of the victim may have been suffering without knowing what happened for years. Now, this being a juicy scandal, Assange, in his great wisdom decides to hold this one back for the purpose of blackmail. He also has another somewhat less juicy scandal about how some politician has not returned a library book on time. Then there are stories in-between, a whole smorgasbord of things for the 'dead man's switch'. Now, if he reveals the scandal about the library book then everyone is going to say 'so what?'. But then, at the other end of the scale, if he reveals the one about the high profile murder then it puts him in the class of people that 'harbour terrorists'. In effect he would have been covering up the crime by being silent about it and not putting it in the public domain. He would have caused undue suffering to the victim's family and allowed the police to waste resources searching in the wrong direction. If one of his minions in his little cult decide to 'go nuclear' and reveal all the secret secrets held back by Wikileaks then it is the same problem. They won't be viewed favourably for being complicit in the cover up to date. Imagine there is the fictional incident of a senior government figure guilty of murder, if that got brought to trial and justice prevailed then, even though Wikileaks might have provided the breakthrough needed for the investigation, holding back evidence would still be a crime. Wives of murderers who harbour their other halves can get prosecuted for being silent even if they are the ones that eventually snitch. So Assange has got nothing? Well, there is a however. Some scandals are far too taboo for the era and you need a new generation to be able to discuss them. So Assange may have content that is too hot for any sane journalist to want to touch and ultimately it is always the mainstream media that disseminates wikileaks. If Wikileaks have something that damns all of them then that ain't gonna get an audience, no matter how punchy it is.