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They don't have the authority to publish it, and technically theyr'e in violation of a number of laws. There's a tradition of not going after media outlets, for a number of reasons, but that's a discretionary/prudential matter.
Also, there's a difference between receiving stolen goods and fencing them. The fence, even if he is not himself the thief, is doing wrong. More wrong than the person who gets the goods from the fence. Not as wrong as the actual thief. So PFC Manning is definitely a criminal -- we can agree on that, yes? Wikileaks then decided it is going to use the fruits of that crime (which it knew was fruits of a crime) to do as much damage as it can - their public statements pretty much say that that's their objective. Seems to me that that's wrong.
I'd have a huge problem if the NY Times (or the Guardian or Reuters) was breaking into computers to get scoops -- wouldn't you? I have much less of a problem with their using stuff that materializes on their doorstep, though I still would hope they'd act responsibly.
But you've taken us pretty far afield, Will. I was trying to get someone to explain to me why pursuing Wikileaks's mission of exposing stuff they think needs to be exposed is ok, but me taking it upon myself to do the same thing to people I might think need to be exposed (whoever they may be) would not be. l still haven't gotten even an attempt at an explanation.
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