Great article Brian. It seems from Gillard's remarks for the benefit of the US, and McClelland's desire to find something, anything to charge Julian with, raises a number of awkward unanswered questions. Some have been raised in this thread.

I'd like to know how effective is the alternative to wikileaks or other leaked information? Can we hope to gain as good an insight into how the government really operates by following the official proccess for making applications through the new Federal Freedom of Information laws? Will Gillard create a culture of pro-active disclosure showing the public that she really does embrace transparency? Can the Shield laws for journalists be of any help to Julian Assage?

Things have taken a turn. Julian Assange is now in custody over Swedish claims of sexual misconduct. The Swedish government officials strongly claim that the request for Assange's extradition has no relation to the Wikileaks operation. Prominent journalists have stated that the information published by Wikileaks is available to any news media who are willing to pursue it. There are no significant revelations that are damaging to any government (as yet). However, it appears that the US has great concern that there may be some information accessed that the government does not want to be made public. If nothing else this will be a lesson to governments to be more cautious in their communications. Cyberspace can easily be hacked by professional hackers (whether they're Chinese, Russian, British, US, German, French, or any other). If there was significant damaging information foreign powers would have already taken advantage.

A little background to the Swedish allegations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/07/rape-claims-julian-assange

Poirot:

Again, Thanks for the link. The plot thickens. And what a plot it is!

Poirot:

Check this out. It's riveting stuff:

http://newmatilda.com/2010/12/08/what-has-really-been-disclosed

By James O'Neill.

Julia Gillard condemned Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange as a "criminal" and promised co-operation with US authorities in their desire to shut down Assange and his website.

But yet Rudd and Howard have come out in defence of Assange. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/kevin-rudd-john-howard-speak-out-over-wikileaks-julian-assange/story-e6frev00-1225967838974

So does this mean they have without meaning to taken down the atheist female PM? If she changes her mind she will look weak if she sticks to what she has said she will be gone and the Australian population will stop any support there was for her currently. Really she needed better advice on this matter.

Rudd comes out with : "Mr Assange is not himself responsible for the unauthorized release of 250,000 documents from the US diplomatic communications network," Rudd told Reuters.

"The Americans are responsible for that." Okay so we are not going to be allies with America. This is fine we all know that they like to play war games and frankly the rest of the world is sick of it. This is interesting from Howard: Mr Rudd's comments came as former prime minister John Howard said also that Mr Assange had not done anything wrong by publishing cables that contained "frank commentary".
Dont think they realised but they have in a way both supported Julian Assange. They have both showed America as a nation up, cant be good for ongoing relations now.
And now this from Gillard : "Kevin Rudd is a man who throughout his adult life has devoted himself to expertise in foreign policy," she said. So does this now mean since she has backed away from her current position she now looks weak yeh pretty much and very uninformed on what is going on. I am curious as to what Abbott thinks about all of this.