They locked up villagers they caught in Afghanistan. They could almost get away with doing that. They can harass and lock up an "unimportant" individual if they feel like it, and probably won't get into much trouble.

But lots of people have heard of Julian Assange, and lots of people know that he is not a criminal. All he has done is published leaked material. That is the same thing that newspaper editors, television producers, and even people who post to blogs and forums have done. Surely they can't lock all those people up.

They can't lock up Assange because:

* He hasn't committed a crime (except maybe in Sweden)

* Lots of people are watching

* Plenty of other people have published or republished the same information.

* Locking him up won't stop the other people at Wikileaks from publishing more information anyway.

This situation is like the government is saying that they support freedom of speech, except in cases where "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!".