Ellis i kommentartråden til The Guardians leder - en klok kommentar:
Assange is performing precisely that service which Jefferson expected of the press- he is divulging information which, though kept secret, belongs in trhe public domain.
The people of Saudi Arabia, for example, depicted by the US Embassy as addicted to TV soap operas, have a right to know that their government (which is to say the tyrannical family which arrogates to itself the power to dominate them -which power, it ought to be added, exists largely thanks to the assistance given over six decades by the US state) is regularly discovered to be urging the bombing of Iran , attacks against Hezbollah and other consequential actions.
Why should not ordinary Saudi residents know of these things, being proposed in their names? Why should they not know why their resources are devoted, not to the benefit of themselves or their neighbours, but to the Zionist project? It might be that this would give them satisfaction, and that they would feel proud of the part their rulers play in punishing Palestinians or subsidising BAE, the Thatcher family or the US Military Industrial Complex.
The point is that to allow them to read what US diplomats are saying about them seems very fair.
That the US government reads my e-mails-and your e-mails, listens to our phone calls, monitors our credit cards and sees itself as permitted to seize, assault and detain our persons( or any other persons whomsoever), to kill, torture and disappear at will- these things are undeniable. Indeed they are state doctrine, upheld by Federal Courts.
Why then, should we not read the e-mails in which they plot their crimes, record their lies, detail their deceitfulness and show their contempt for the rule of law and honest dealings?
And why is it that nobody seems to find it remarkable that, during the past few days, it has become obvious that, quite apart from threatening, or bribing internet service providers the US government is employing enormous public resources for vandalism, to hack websites and interfere with communications?