[AndyJackson]

Whether the publication of national security information can be punished likely turns on the value of the information to the public weighed against the likelihood of identifiable harm to the national security, arguably a more difficult case for prosecutors to make

There are several things that folks forget here:

1. A jury trial. You have to find 12 jurors who will agree to convict. Even here on FR it is about an even split on whether Assange is guilty of anything. One juror holding out and it is a mistrial.

2. The prosecution would have to provide testimony as to what information caused actual harm to national security, and the defense gets to cross examine and provide rebuttal witnesses. There is little information I have seen that falls into that category and I think that the government would look ridiculous when it made its arguments.

3. The problem of overclassification. Even if some of the information is legitimately classified because it would do harm to national security, the huge volume of what we have seen so far is not. One of the real no no's in the classified world is mixing classified and unclassified information because it makes the protection of the classified information hard to protect. All the defense has to show is that much of the information was classified to avoid embarassment to the government, or for some other illegeitimate reason, and there goes the ball game.

[LomanBill]

All valid points.

Regarding overclassification-

I wonder how many jobs are produced by the bureaucratic process of manufacturing and protecting “secrets”?

Furthermore, it’s not unreasonable to wonder if some of those “secrets” aren’t manufactured merely for the purpose of producing jobs for manufacturing and protecting “secrets”... consistent with the self-serving nature of bureaucracy.

[Lorianne]

Plus Assange is not a US citizen and doesn’t reside here, so I don’t think he’d get a civil jury trial in the US, if it ever came to that.