@Root: Doesn't matter what's on the list. The fact that the list was considered to be confidential and he released it is what matters.
How could a potential Supreme Court case not yield monumental effects? The guy is using the Internet to spread information about the security of a nation. If he can be persecuted for this, then what will determine what endangers a nation? This would give precedence for the government to further restrict the First Amendment.
read my post above.
he's spread information that's obvious, the Italian president considers himself a ladies man, France president is thin skinned and quick to anger, Russians president considers him self a bit of an "alpha dog"
these are not national security secrets, they are well established, and well known (if you bother to look outside your own country).
as I said, the sites of national importance are also pretty well known, stuff that you're average person in the street is likely to know.
there is not a lot that's actually there that would help anyone attack America. there isn't anything about national security.
so far as the classification system goes, this was apparently pretty low guard stuff, over 3000 ordinary people had access to this.
there is already plenty of precedence regarding leaked information that is not a security interest (but is confidential), that has gone through lower and upper courts.
basically, the courts would have to throw away plenty of already set case law to make an example of this man.
the funniest bit about this is that julian Assange, didn't set up Wiki leaks alone, he's co-founder at best, and the media whore figurehead of the organisation. he considers himself a journalist, but if he were a journalist he'd be the lowest common denominator, spreading gossip from the X-factor house of something, not changing the world in any way.
it's a shame really, because the real founders of wikileaks are supposedly unknown Chinese dissidents, that are actually spreading information about the horrible side of governments.
not this bunch of crap about what one diplomat thinks of another.
if you don't understand what I'm saying then here it is a lot more clearly.
All the information released so far on this cable gate story are childish gossip stories, what one diplomat calls another, or what one country is doing that they might not agree with or do agree with.
and the media LOVES it, they can report it, it's not changing the world, pretty much all the nations involved don't really care.
not you release something real on there, like programmes or torture, official government papers showing that people are being traffiked through a country on rendition flights. the kind of stuff that people would get really angry about, the kind of stuff that might actually change the world... the media won't touch that.
as far as I can see there are only (so far) 3 stories of importance to come out of this.
1, air assaults in Yemmen, with that countries government lying to their citizens, (not a problem for America, and no concern to Americas security.
2, Hillary Clinton ordering people to spy on UN delegates and officials, including gathering credit card details, and "any other" information that would help the government spy on delegates.
3, the fact that supposedly classified documents can leave the building.
by just like when Gary mcKinnon hacked the pentagon, the US government would rather make lots of noise and point fingers about how it's the other peoples fault than they would fix their bloody network security!