Trial of Assange and Snowden
What could be beneficial of a US trial of Assange (and with Snowden as co-defendant) is to expand current limits on journalism provided by constitutional perquisites and bargained protections that have become stultifying and overcontrolling of main stream media by way of threatening economics of media boards, publishers and editors.
The canard of "freedom of the press" has become hoary justification for what is a self-praising and -rewarding industry based on covert cooperation with governments while crowing about keeping the public informed of government misbehavior.
WikiLeaks and Snowden's dump are only celebrated and press-magnified disclosures of a much wider variety of unauthorized publication of overly-secretized information. There have been many precedents before them and even more since their appearance, in what could be seen as a necessary citizen response to excessive classification of government, commercial, non-profit and individual malfeasance, cheating, lying, extorting and multiple types of criminality. Use of the internet for these efforts is what is novel and disruptive of printed and broadcast domination of public information.
Public trials of the two celebrants could open new locked boxes of court filings restricted by secrecy promulgations.
Bear in mind that neither WikiLeaks nor Snowden have disclosed their full holdings (and crow about it), and both have succumbed to the allure of press protection to do this disinforming of the public under rubric of "trust us, we know what is best for you." Public trials might be the way to get around media deputization by law enforcement, maybe, maybe not, deals and settlements and pardons could continue the corruption essential to holding power and accruing wealth.
Still, keep fingers crossed that diminution of MSM jobs have led to more fora run by writers themselves communicating uneditorialized with the information-hungry public. Comments here are part of that.