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?

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).