Wiki Leaks - Freedom of Speach?

By now most of heard about Wiki Leaks and its creator Julian Assange.  Wiki Leaks  is an international non-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources and news leaks.  In past months Wiki Leaks have leak thousands of US military files that were stollen by a low ranking solider.

Now here is the part that is starting to dive me crazy.  The question on everyone mind is "Is what he did illegal? Should Julian Assange be held accountable and prosecuted?"  To me this very question is ridiculous.  He is an Australian citizen that runs a web site based out of Sweden.  It doesn't matter what he does he does not fall under US jurisdiction.  We cannot even extradite Roman Polanski as he hosts film festivals in his villa in France, and he was convicted on US soil.  The news channels know this but they still constantly talked about it because it makes great news.  The guy that actually stole the stuff was arrested immediately and sitting in a military jail.  They are going to throw the book at him and you know they are not letting him talk to anyone so there is no story there.

Wiki Leaks is protected under the first amendment just like anyone else.  Any newspaper or news network that got the scoop first would have reported the story.  If CNN or the New York Times got the scoop first would the anger about the leak have taken the same direction?  And all the major news networks report it anyway.  One reason for the out lash at Wiki Leaks from the major new networks is because such a small organization got the information first.  In in a kind of act of jealousy the major news networks bash the little guy.  A good example of this same thing happening in the media else were is a certain male celebrity went on Howard Stern recently and told some truths about himself and the next day he was criticized for giving the story to Stern and not to some one like Oprah.

The government got off easy on this one.  The story became not what facts were leaked but got turned around and Wiki Leaks became the story.  Who even remembers what was leaked? Something about Gaddafi getting plastic surgery and the Saudi's bitching about Iran, what a revelation.   This is a good example agenda setting and of how the mass media does not necessarily tell us what to think but what to think about.  It is a shame that the media does support Wiki Leaks more because in the long run what ever legal decisions come of this is going to effect the freedom of speech or everyone.