[ben_w]

If I'd been the editor of the Guardian newspaper on the day the British security services ordered the destruction of the hard drive with the Snowden archives, I would've made the next day's front page almost fully blacked-out, except for perhaps a handful of words across the whole thing reading:

> ■■■ no ■■■■ ■■ ■■■■ free ■ ■■■■ ■■ ■■■■ ■■■ press ■■■■ ■ ■■ ■■■ ■ ■■■

or something else equally snarky.

But Snowden still comes across as one of the "good guys", someone who was expecting to get hurt and did his thing anyway because it was the right thing to do, whereas Assange… comes across wanting to be the headline rather than be responsible for the headline.

Well, came across; I've only heard statements about him or on his behalf since he left the embassy, not from his own mouth. But the old reputation stuck.

[loup-vaillant]

In my opinion, the major difference between Assange and Snowden is the respective threats they represent: Snowden was a one and done deal. Get the stuff out, blow the whistle, done. Worst case someone might be encouraged to imitate him.

Wikileaks, and Assange as its figurehead, are a different deal. They enable whistleblowing, and as journalists they can report over and over again. Whistleblowers typically whistle only once. Journalists can re-whistle constantly.

Most importantly though, journalists who actually protect their sources (hopefully that’s a tautology) can forward illegally obtained information and shield their sources from any legal repercussions. Kind of the whole point of source protection, but even Western governments don’t like whistleblowers evading the law. They’d rather know who blew the whistle, just to make sure it’s never blown inappropriately. Because inappropriately blown whistles are so much worse than inappropriately unblown whistles I guess?

[orwin]

Let's be honest, unlike Snowden, Assange really come as an asshole, and that really undermined the public opinion.

I know the 'rape' bit was probably political, but he seems like the type of guy who would totally do that, and I think he actually did considering his lawyer responses. The fact that the woman brought it to court however, that's the point that is suspicious to me. A consequent fraction (at least 10% imho) of the male population could be condemned for the same stuff, dirty pigs. And the fact that it was a successful trial. My sister was actually raped by her employer, and advices from both the police and lawyers were "you can't bring that to court, it's a 'he said she said' situation, you should just make a report and 'hope another girl get raped'" (rough translation of what the 'helpful' policeman said).