So Americans love nothing more than to see the world as a collection of slippery slopes so there'll be the Assange defenders who argue this is an attack on pres

So Americans love nothing more than to see the world as a collection of slippery slopes so there'll be the Assange defenders who argue this is an attack on press freedom but... I urge you to look a little deeper. There are two major issues here: 1. Assange actively participated in the acquisition of classified material. This came up in the Chelsea Manning. Pointing to tools that can be useful. Prompting action. That sort of thing; and 2. Assange was playing politics. This should've been clear from Assange's actions with respect to the DNC emails. Think about (1) for a second. Imagine the Attorney General had committed a crime. Proof of that was in a safe in his house. Which of the following is acceptable conduct in obtaining that information? - Breaking into his house to get it; - Destroying the safe to get at the contents; - Holding him at gunpoint to open the safe; - Holding his family hostage until he provides the information; - Hiring someone to do any of the above; - Someone offers the information to you without you knowing how it came to be in their possession; - Someone notifies you of the information's existence and location. You pay them to acquire it. Or give them a gun. Or threaten them if they don't. The point of these examples is to show that: 1. There is no absolute defense here and certainly not "journalism". The alternative is robbing banks as an expression of journalistic freedom; and 2. If you commit a crime, you commit a crime and the authorities can prosecute you for that. The other side of this is recent administrations seem to have adopted a disproportionate response approach to dealing with leaks and whistleblowers, likely as a deterrent (they hope).