Ah, but you forget the NSA. And WMD in Iraq hate is much like Prius hate: it is so overdone.
If a teenage kid can write a program which can nearly bring a large bank to its knees and stay anonymous (at least for a while), or a worm can be stuck into the programming for Iranian uranium centrifuges without leaving a real trace as to its genesis (many suspect the Israeli military), somehow I think the CIA/NSA can do better.
But back to the thread subject: Assange is NOT a hero, even though some media organizations like to portray him as such. So what if he offered to let the US government redact some of the communications he stole, orr eceived, or choose your favorite term? That's like some hacker stealing your personal information, then showing up on your doorstep and saying to you 'hey before I splatter this all over the Web you wanna trim out the most embarrassing bits? Which I will still have somewhere else, so I can still use them on you in case you piss me off?' Hell no you wouldn't talk to him, you'd probably try to kick his ass. I suspect the US government did something similar.
I still like SVreX's assessment of him and his ilk best. I dislike the idea of someone dying due to his irresponsible 'journalism' but if it happens I hope he fries.