No one at the New York Times risked arrest by publishing them. That's the point.
Did you pay attention to the Manning trial? You actually could not. It was full of restrictions on public access. National Security...the broad blanket used to squelch any and all opposition to our government. Nobody seems to get it. According to the Bible, what did Adam and Eve do to get their asses tossed out of Eden?
Knowledge of good and evil...not being evil...just knowing about it. We are prohibited knowing about the evil our country does in our name. Why do we keep accepting this notion of unknowable information being classified and kept from us? We are the only country in the world with 900 military bases scattered all around the world. We export most of the weapons that appear in these conflicts world wide. The classification system is something that only evil people accept...and they only want it for themselves. We have serious problems and the entire world should know about them and we have no business accepting stonewalling by our government or for that matter any other government. The problem is one of most of the nations of the world being ruled by bullies and thugs that start by making what ought to be a public government PRIVATE. This entire issue is one of SECRET PRIVATIZATION OF GOVERNMENT.
It makes a mockery of our democracy....it is clear that we are being ruled by terrorists, assassins, and full scale war mongers. The two candidates for president both brag about how they will use the military. Assange is a victim of our system without being a citizen of the U.S. This is the case with most of our victims. The Palestinians are victims of the American surrogate in Palestine. A country that lives by the sword dies by the sword. Wake up. Get on board with a gentler more diplomatic and less violent form of leadership...or you will see our country die...either in violent acts or merely the slow death of massive poverty. There is nothing inherent in America to keep it from becoming like Argentina or perhaps Chili or El Salvador or Guatemala. Our wholly inadequate constitution has been stripped away by greedy corporate interests and is almost non existent today. What do you think Wikileaks was about? More information...what we need. We don't need Manning in Jail. There are hundreds of bankers that belong there instead.