I've said this a couple times in the last couple days, unless they can prove Assange hacked or stole the information he released there is no crime. Publishing is not a crime, they would have to imprison everyone who printed the information Assange released. By making threats they, in my opinion, are in essence keeping Assange imprisoned inside the embassy by intimidating him into believing they will arrest him. What better way to imprison someone you can't legally imprison. At the most they could use the hack and the fact he published the emails to justify getting a extradition request to question him. If Assange knows in his heart that he was sent those emails and had nothing to do with hacking them he has nothing to fear coming out of the embassy. He's considered a hero to half the people in the US and any case the government would level at him would come under extreme examination by the citizens in the US. They would never get away with false imprisonment of him, which is basically what they are doing right now, they can watch every move he makes and as we now see are fully capable of controlling his every movement...why would they want him out?...they don't.

What Chelsea Manning did was wrong. Just like Snowden. There is other avenues these people can go down but they choose the route they took and it's criminal. Chelsea by no means was being tortured. I have a brother whose been in solitary confinement for years. This isn't a third world country. She could still have visitors, make phone calls, receive mail and be allowed time outside her cell each day to go outside, granted that was a enclosed fenced area away from other inmates but she wasn't living in a hole in the ground with no access sitting in the darkness. They are lodged next to other cells that they can talk through the walls, drain openings to inmates next to them. They also have a creative way that once the guard check goes by they slip stuff to each passing it from cell to cell from underneath a gap at the bottom of the door. She also more than likely had plenty of money being sent to her whereas she could buy plenty of extra food items, writing materials and subscribe to books, magazine and activity books to keep her busy not to mention the hundreds of letters she received from supporters she could answer to keep herself occupied. They also are allowed televisions which have cable television. Really rough way to go, yes, torture?...hardly.