There’s one mother of a backstory here. I wish I had confidence is some journo/s getting to the bottom of it.
That’s an understatement. This will give you something to start chewing on.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2637720/posts?page=11#7
I am finding some interesting references to Assange in the 90s when he was messing with the NSA (by messing, I mean hacking). He referred to himself and was referred to in a lot of articles as a cryptographer, not a hacker. I am certain he may have been a foreign operative.
I think the “backstory” is that the government is allowing him to continue to prove the necessity of tightly regulating the internet.