It's a thorny issue and yes, the rape case against him seems to be just a little too "convenient". It all stinks of muck raking and sinister men in black suits. Assange seems to be being made an example of simply for embarassing the governments of the western world by revealing their secrets. Any claims that "lives are being put at risk" would be very difficult to justify or even quantify, especially as all I've really learned is that a member of a certain royal family may have possibly been rude to someone at some point.
Assange seems to me to be a man perhaps too obsessed with revealing the "truth", like he cannot bear to think that a government may actually want to keep secrets from other countries or even their own electorate. While that's an admirable ideal, in the real world some things really have to be classified. Simply blurting the truth out to all and sundry isn't always the wisest course of action.
As for the AES-encrypted "insurance file" supposedly stacked full of top secret information that Assange may or may not reveal the password to, who knows what's in there? It's been downloaded by thousands of people and still exists on the Wikileaks mirror sites, just waiting for someone to release the password to the internet at large. Then perhaps Pandora's box of nasty little secrets really will be opened. My bet is that it proves Adolf Hitler, Elvis and JFK are living in the television studio where Richard Nixon faked the moon landings.
Just reading this back so there's no prejudicial remarks, libel or cuss words. Sub judice's a biatch, just remembering that the case hasn't come to trial so being a bit non-commital in this post.
