What should Julian Assange be charged with?

[cinyc]

He should be treated as what he is - a foreign spy - and dealt with like other foreign spies.

[cinyc]

So, my question to everybody who says, "Nothing." ... should the U.S. not charge people with espionage?  And if we do, how are those people any different than Assange?

Uh, Inks and cinyc and don, the guy who allegedly gave him this stuff is being charged.  

As he should be.  But that doesn't absolve Assange from any liability should he ever be caught.
  
Like other foreign spies, Assange might never be caught- but that's a totally different issue.  As is whether he, like other notorious foreign spies, might meet a different end than being hauled into court.

[cinyc]

It is. Our constitution is pretty clear that what Mr Assange is doing counts as Freedom of Speech. The crime is commited  by the people who leak the information to him.

Which is also true under US law. See the publishing of the Pentagon Papers or Bob Novak exposing Valerie Plame. Neither the NY Times or Novak broke any laws.

That's a fundamental misunderstanding of both the Pentagon Papers case and current law.  The Pentagon Papers case was about whether the government could stop the New York Times from publishing classified information, not the criminality of the actual release.  And the government sometimes has good reasons not to go after lawbreakers who release classified information, including not compromising additional classified information during the trial.

LOL, "espionage", "treason", "foreign spy".  Good luck getting him extradited to a country that still has a federal death penalty for such offenses, guys.

Who said anything about extradition?  There are plenty of ways governments deal with foreign spies, many times not by hauling them into court.

[cinyc]

LOL, "espionage", "treason", "foreign spy".  Good luck getting him extradited to a country that still has a federal death penalty for such offenses, guys.

Who said anything about extradition?  There are plenty of ways governments deal with foreign spies, many times not by hauling them into court.

So you're advocating assassination?

Uh, that or GITMOesque living quarters...

It'd be pretty funny to see the U.S. invade Sweden to capture one of its residents and drag him to Gitmo...

Well, funny for crazy right-wing "patriots", of course.

Who said anything about assassination or invading Sweden?  There are ways to deal with foreign spies without assassinating them or "invading" foreign countries.  Letting the Swedes or Australians deal with him would be one.   Counterspying on him - perhaps publicly to make him know it and think twice before doing it again - would be another.  The guy is a foreign spy and should be treated as such.

Though if Assange did something like this to Russia or China, he would have eaten some polonium soup by now.