A pretty reasonable article….

Feds hint at charges for WikiLeaks’ Assange

When asked whether “traditional media” organizations that republish secret documents could be prosecuted, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said that the administration applauds “the role of journalists in your daily pursuits.”

“In our view, Mr. Assange is not a journalist,” Crowley added.

….the Obama administration has been trying to draw a sharp distinction between WikiLeaks and traditional journalists — who would be unlikely to post thousands of raw cables to the Internet and more likely to bow to pressure not to publish. The New York Times delayed its expose of Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping for over a year, for instance.

“I would not draw any comparison between WikiLeaks and The New York Times,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said last week on MSNBC. “The New York Times has not posted for all the world, including our enemies, to mine, a database of un-redacted raw documents, classified information that they solicited to be stolen. That’s just not the same.”
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Another approach the Justice Department could take, which might be more likely to pass First Amendment muster: arguing that Assange, and anyone else deeply involved with WikiLeaks, is guilty of conspiracy by soliciting classified materials. That’s something that journalists tend to shy away from doing.

The Pentagon previewed this argument a few months ago when arguing that “WikiLeaks’s webpage constitutes a brazen solicitation to U.S. government officials, including our military, to break the law.”