WRONG.... you are uninformed.
The legal questions that were handled during the Ellsberg/Pentagon papers cases were
(1) about “prior restraint” — i.e., whether the govt could prohibit publication of classified materials beforehand (as compared with prosecutions after the fact).... the SCOTUS said that prior restraint would require a very high standard of imminent harm which (in their lofty judicial opinions) was not met in the “Pentagon Papers” case.... in fact the SCOTUS allowed prosecution of Ellsberg and Russo to proceed under the Espionage Act of 1917.
(2) the govt then botched the legally permissible prosecution of Ellsberg and Russo with illegal activities such as wiretaps, breaking into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. THAT is what got the Ellsberg case thrown out, govt misconduct.
Certainly the bar is high for prosecutions of “espionage” and the MSM has been given (in my humble opinion) too much latitude and discretion, but there is no legal precedent barring prosecutions of illegal releases of classified materials as espionage.
Anyway, Assange and Wikileaks are not themselves “media” entities by any reasonable standard — the govt would hesitate to prosecute media outlets even after the fact, given the climate of the past 40 years, but Assange may have a steep road to convince anyone that hackers and transmitters of stolen documents should themselves be treated as “press”....
“Anyway, Assange and Wikileaks are not themselves “media” entities by any reasonable standard...”
What reasonable standard? Are you implying that if I don’t meet these criteria I have no freedom of the press? If not, how does one go about getting permission to have this freedom?
No its free speech and “press”. The internet is without any doubt “publishing” — Drudge ,Salon, Huffington?? Come on.
The only test in Ellsburg was “is the item published news worthy”? They should have executed ellsburg but there is not a centilla of evidence that Assange stole anything. But even if he did, he could publish it all day long if it was “News Worthy” . “No law shall abridge...” means NO LAW!!