Are we talking about the same Steve Jobs? The most famous ass in the entire world of tech and all-time champion of locked and proprietary software? If anyone in the entire world would willingly lock down user's rights it would be Apple and Steve Jobs.
Nobody said Steve Jobs was a nice guy. He was relentless in pursuing his goals, and had no compassion for anyone he ever worked with.
In this case his goal is a happy consumer. The people he's working with are the RIAA. If he thought that inheritance rights were very important to those consumers he'd have fought the RIAA on the issue tooth and nail. But he never bothered.
Why did my personal insurance rate drop by $1,000 a year when I moved from urban Detroit to the suburbs?
It wasn't because I magically became a better driver. It's because the state of Michigan allows insurers to factor your zip code into their price, and they don't like Detroit very much. A major reason most Detroiters don't have car insurance is that my premium was roughly 15% of the city's per capita income.
Perhaps he's doing scientific research in the field, or he's got multiple labs. Perhaps the company knows somebody is leaking data from it's network to it's competitor, therefore putting it on multiple desktops that are connected to the company network 24/7 would be bad security. Perhaps the employee is a dick who'll make everyone's life miserable if he can't do his job from his laptop.
And of course, this story is about the military. They can't lock all their sensitive info into a date warehouse in DC. They actually have to use it, in places where you can't get reasonable data speeds even if you get a network set up.
You're using hindsight. Of course Apple got rid of the keyboard on it's cell phone. Cell phone keyboards were stupid now that I've seen an iPhone. But somehow nobody at Samsung, Nokia, RIM, or Ericksen thought of that before iPhone. The industry was revolutionized.
Obviously using a desktop OS on a pad is stupid now that I've seen the iPad. The interface needs a mouse/keyboard which isn't natural to tablets, processors/RAM/HD requirements are high which makes battery life low, it weighs a ton, etc. It makes much more sense to scale up a cell phone OS. But before iPad plenty of companies had designed tablets with Windows. Looked at one way this is just mixing up features cell phones already had on the larger screen Windows Tablets had, looked at another way the iPad created the industry.
I submit to you if there are no patentable ideas in two products that completely revolutionized their industries there's a problem with the patent system.
Yeah, but those knockoffs cost fractions of the price of the original, and most people cannot tell that they aren't the original. You can tell a Samsung phone isn't iOS, and it's not gonna be easy for Samsung to have a phone actually equal to Apple's products for half the price. The Apple Tax just ain't that high.
You're misunderstanding the legal meaning of "peer." It means equal rank before the law. Since US Law does not recognize nobility rights that means a "Jury of your peers" is by definition made up of ordinary people. Literally anyone who can vote can serve on any Jury. Lawyers can keep people off if they think they'll be biased, and can strike a limited number of people for no reason at all.
You're forgetting something: Samsung was asking for $422 million from Apple because they alleged Apple was infringing on Samsung's patents. If this foreman is biased for patent holders it follows that he'd be biased to find for Samsung.
So while in 20/20 hindsight leaving him on the jury was stupid, given that they didn't know he'd decide all Samsung's patents were BS before the trial started...
Putting a patent holder on this jury is just suspect from the get go.
And yet Samsung chose to strike somebody else and leave him there. It's not as if this jury happened completely by accident.
And the reason they didn't is that his conflict of interest should have made him MORE sympathetic to both sides. Remember Samsung has patents they claim Apple violates.
In hindsight leaving a guy who decided Apple's patents were valid, but apparently decided Samsung's weren't, on the jury was suicide. But when the Jury was created they had no idea he'd side against them so decisively.
The problem here is that both sides had patents to defend. Which means that it would be in his interest to rule all patents valid. By ignoring Samsung's he's created a precedent by which his patent could be ignored.
So in 20/20 hindsight Samsung should have thrown him off (and they probably could have), but they couldn't know he'd find against them at the beginning of the trial.
One of Apple's biggest assets is their design, look, feel, etc (Trade dress). Did you expect apple to take it laying down?
Eh, Apple is getting screwed either way. Even if they win, they lose. Before this trial, consumers in the US mentally lumped Samsung in with Motorola, Sony, and a half-dozen other also-rans. Now Apple is claiming "Samsung copies our products!", "Consumers can't tell the difference!". The longer this case drags out, the more coverage it gets, and the more consumers are going to believe those claims through repetition.
Apple has rebranded Samsung to be in their league. Normally, you can't buy that kind of advertising at any price. Samsung got a bargain at $1B
Possible, but unlikely.
The spin people are more likely to believe is that Samsung's products are by definition rip-offs of Apple, and therefore anybody who pays money for them has been ripped off. And Samsung just doesn't have the marketing chops to beat that spin.
On the one hand your arguments make sense individually. You can prove all Apple's patents are absurd.
On the other there was no useful tablet computer before the iPad. You can instantly tell whether a phone was pre-iPhone or post-iPhone at a glance. And there's no way you're spending money on the pre-iPhone model even if it's got 1TB of memory.
That is, by definition, the kind of innovation that the patent system is designed to protect.
If you're pricing a MacBook you have already decided there are two over-riding specs you want:
1) It has to be absolutely seamlessly integrated into the Apple ecosystem of devices. I don't doubt it's possible to get buy with a Dell, an iPad, and an Android phone as your primary devices but it's a lot less seamless that way. And by the way, I consider a single dialog box or preference a "seam."
2) It has to be supported in a physical retail store so I can show a tech support dude the company trusts exactly my problem with no hassles.
RAM, HD space, Video Card, etc. are nice additions to those specs, but if HP-Compaq/Dell/whatever is charging more then free they still lose.
I would argue that Apple's biggest asset is the apple symbol they stamp on all their products. It seems to have magical properties to make the average consumer deaf to all other alternative products.
Yes the properties of my MacBook are truly magical.
1) It understands the data from my previous computer (a Mac Mini) with absolutely no hassle.
2) It is supported by a company with a retail store I can get to on public transit. This company charges a premium, but has ridiculously generous tech support people who once replaced my entire motherboard after I told them I spilled Doctor Pepper on it.
3) If I had money to spare for a tablet or a smartphone those would just work. There'd be no compatibility issues. Moreover it would be trivial to find out which models of iPhone each program worked on. There'd be no "Oh shit, this particular model from Motorola has a screen 10 pixels too narrow, so the interface on that game doesn't work.
4) My family is acclimated to me as a Mac-User. They do not give me frantic calls for their Windows problems very often. My Mac-using sister has access to a Genuis Bar.
5) I've been a Macuser since System 7 was new. I have literally forgotten more tricks on the proper maintenance of Macs then I have ever known for non-Apple products.
The fact is I have the technical skills to ignore 1, 3, and 5. However this would have the dual disadvantages that a) I'd be unable to ask for support for myself in a) retail environment and b) I'd get a lot of calls from three time zones and people asking what to do with their Windows.
The story was not supporting the coup, it was after the coup. It was reporting on Correa's response, claiming he was too heavy-handed.
If there was a similar situation in the US today (right-wing nuts seizing the Oval Office, demanding increased military pay, but their rebellion is put down with some loss of life) DFoxNews would definitely have a guy on Hannitty claiming Obama was high-handed and that he should be arrested for judicial murder. And they wouldn't get fined for it, or in any official trouble whatsoever.
I do notice that Correa has manipulated the politics of this brilliantly. A violent police strike is a "coup," therefore he can crush it. Since he called it a "coup" he can also destroy any media organization that criticizes his handling of the matter in any way. He is magically above reproach. His minions can sentence anyone who disagrees with him to three years in jail, and a $40 million fine. He gets credit for not sending his opponents to jail, but (since under the Constitution he wrote he can't quash the fine) all opposition to his rule in the media becomes impossible.
I was all set to agree with you guys completely, until I saw the shirt. It repeats the acronym ZOMG a half-dozen times. As someone who has never sent (and will never send) a text message my first thought was that ZOMG is a variant of ZOG, Zionist Occupation Government; which is the acronym neo-Nazis use whenever they're pissed that the Feds won't let them murder Jewish people. I googled it, and found it's harmless, solely because I couldn't figure out whether it meant Zionist Occupied Military Government or Zionist Occupation Military Government. To anybody a) knowledgeable about white supremacism and b) not knowledgeable about the new variant of OMG going around this shirt does not look like a joke the ZOMGs that are supposed make it more whimsical look like a threat.
Don't get me wrong. I love the guy. Poopstrong's ability to get health insurance to actually cover his cancer treatment was great. And he probably wouldn't have been in trouble if his name had been John Freeman. But sometimes you just got to understand that humor does not translate generations, and making a joke old people won't get about blowing up a plane is not adult behavior.
Alaska doen't count. It has no cities over a million. It's largest city is only 290k. Anchorage area is 380k. In terms of City proper if you're in the US you have to be in NY, TX, PA, IL or AZ. No other states have cities with a million people in them.
In terms of Metro area you could be a lot more states, but you're tied to the bit of the state least likely to include the anti-government rural types your strategy depends on.
I didn't say Wikileaks were lying, or breaking their word, or anything like that. I said they were assholes who got the opponents of oppressive regimes locked up because their previous strategy (which involved editing the cables so names those folks couldn't be identified) wasn't getting Lord Julian enough face-time on CNN.
And yes, in Zimbabwe opposing the regime is illegal. Which means "freeing the information" that two Generals opposed the regime constitutes both a) exposing crime, and b) supporting dictatorship.
It's trivial to find reports of Correa screwing with journalists. A $40 million fine for demanding the president be arrested for crimes against humanity? If Bush or Obama did that the US would not have a budget deficit. We'd also have precisely zero media outlets left, because not even the richest American media outlets could pay that.
Choosing to prosecute those guys, which earns them a three-year sentence, and then pretending you're completely innocent by pardoning them? It's a classic move of somebody who wants to control information a little more, but not a lot more, and given that the pardon can't erase the $40 million fine, which killed their newspaper.
1. She still doesn't know Swedish. Which means she cannot read any actual Court documents. She can read translations but those are almost certainly prepared by people sympathetic to Wikileaks and thus not trustworthy sources.
2. If this is her argument she really doesn't understand Swedish Law. Mrs. Ny is not a Prosecutor assigned to a different County of Sweden, she's the original Prosecutor's boss. Being overruled by the boss is, indeed, unusual, but it's not suspicious.
3. You're missing the point. Wolf clearly knows that Rove is right-wing and Bergstrom left-wing. She doesn't mention it in her article because she knows most that starting an article by accusing the Moderates of being out to get Assange, and ending it by saying prominent Social Democrats are in on it; would destroy her credibility. Rather then do the smart thing and leave the latter accusation out, she includes both. This implies that if there are any other little problems with her case you won't see them. She'll gloss them over and hope you don't know to do the research.
As for her ability to understand Swedish law vs. Rove's ability to understand the politics; there's a key difference: Rove made his name by building databases. It's called micro-targeting, and it's credited by some with beating John Kerry by increasing right-wing turnout (Kerry lost by 2.4 points, the rule-of-thumb is a superior turnout operation is worth 2-3 points). That experience is very relevant to politics anywhere. I don't like the man, and I believe quite a lot of bad things about him, but I have to say he's exactly the guy I'd want to talk to for a few hours if I was a right-wing candidate running for office anywhere.
OTOH, Wolf is coming to a legal system cold specifically to research a single politically-charged case. She does not know the language. And she's asking people, many of whom have an ideological axe to grind, very complex questions about a very unusual case.
Which laws? He is not a U.S. citizen so I would have thought he is under no obligation to keep U.S. secrets "secret". He has not broken any Australian laws - the Australian government has admitted as much.
Also, why hasn't charges been laid against the major media owners? I thought they published the documents before it was even put on the Wikileaks site - and are definitely under U.S. jurisdiction.
Obligation is irrelevant. In theory Anna Chapman's Russian spy ring had no obligation to not spy on the US, but they were still guilty of breaking US Law.
In theory Wikileaks could be nailed for leaking classified information. Their sole defense is that they're a media organization, protected by various US Laws, particularly the First Amendment. The problem with that is that a) no leaking organization has ever been granted such a status, and b) such status is generally partially dependent on you making damn sure most of your information won;t get people killed. Wikileaks almost certainly lost that when they dumped all their documents at once, with no effort at all to keep the names of people talking to the Embassy secret.
Admittedly it's a bit of hyperbole. They aren't as bad as real dictatorships, but Reporters Without Borders has quite a file on Correa: http://en.rsf.org/ecuador.html
He's got a tendency to find reasons to shut down any media critical of him, including ridiculous fines and jail-time.
... while physically on U.S. meatspace territory or under other circumstances that would make him subject to U.S. law in the first place?
Does not matter.
Jurisdiction is only relevant if somebody exists to enforce said jurisdiction. So in the US a Federal Court might order an Alabama Court not to prosecute you for shit you did in Louisiana. As far as the Federal Courts are concerned they are God.
Slashdot Mirror
Are we talking about the same Steve Jobs? The most famous ass in the entire world of tech and all-time champion of locked and proprietary software?
If anyone in the entire world would willingly lock down user's rights it would be Apple and Steve Jobs.
Nobody said Steve Jobs was a nice guy. He was relentless in pursuing his goals, and had no compassion for anyone he ever worked with.
In this case his goal is a happy consumer. The people he's working with are the RIAA. If he thought that inheritance rights were very important to those consumers he'd have fought the RIAA on the issue tooth and nail. But he never bothered.
Why did my personal insurance rate drop by $1,000 a year when I moved from urban Detroit to the suburbs?
It wasn't because I magically became a better driver. It's because the state of Michigan allows insurers to factor your zip code into their price, and they don't like Detroit very much. A major reason most Detroiters don't have car insurance is that my premium was roughly 15% of the city's per capita income.
Ignore the last paragraph. I could have sworn the Pentagon did the study, but turns out it's Ponemon Institute.
Damnit I didn't read the article properly. It said Ponemon, and I thought Pentagon.
Perhaps he's doing scientific research in the field, or he's got multiple labs. Perhaps the company knows somebody is leaking data from it's network to it's competitor, therefore putting it on multiple desktops that are connected to the company network 24/7 would be bad security. Perhaps the employee is a dick who'll make everyone's life miserable if he can't do his job from his laptop.
And of course, this story is about the military. They can't lock all their sensitive info into a date warehouse in DC. They actually have to use it, in places where you can't get reasonable data speeds even if you get a network set up.
Remember the people doing the actual analysis here were the military. They have much different security needs then you do.
You're using hindsight. Of course Apple got rid of the keyboard on it's cell phone. Cell phone keyboards were stupid now that I've seen an iPhone. But somehow nobody at Samsung, Nokia, RIM, or Ericksen thought of that before iPhone. The industry was revolutionized.
Obviously using a desktop OS on a pad is stupid now that I've seen the iPad. The interface needs a mouse/keyboard which isn't natural to tablets, processors/RAM/HD requirements are high which makes battery life low, it weighs a ton, etc. It makes much more sense to scale up a cell phone OS. But before iPad plenty of companies had designed tablets with Windows. Looked at one way this is just mixing up features cell phones already had on the larger screen Windows Tablets had, looked at another way the iPad created the industry.
I submit to you if there are no patentable ideas in two products that completely revolutionized their industries there's a problem with the patent system.
Yeah, but those knockoffs cost fractions of the price of the original, and most people cannot tell that they aren't the original. You can tell a Samsung phone isn't iOS, and it's not gonna be easy for Samsung to have a phone actually equal to Apple's products for half the price. The Apple Tax just ain't that high.
You're misunderstanding the legal meaning of "peer." It means equal rank before the law. Since US Law does not recognize nobility rights that means a "Jury of your peers" is by definition made up of ordinary people. Literally anyone who can vote can serve on any Jury. Lawyers can keep people off if they think they'll be biased, and can strike a limited number of people for no reason at all.
You're forgetting something:
Samsung was asking for $422 million from Apple because they alleged Apple was infringing on Samsung's patents. If this foreman is biased for patent holders it follows that he'd be biased to find for Samsung.
So while in 20/20 hindsight leaving him on the jury was stupid, given that they didn't know he'd decide all Samsung's patents were BS before the trial started...
Putting a patent holder on this jury is just suspect from the get go.
And yet Samsung chose to strike somebody else and leave him there. It's not as if this jury happened completely by accident.
And the reason they didn't is that his conflict of interest should have made him MORE sympathetic to both sides. Remember Samsung has patents they claim Apple violates.
In hindsight leaving a guy who decided Apple's patents were valid, but apparently decided Samsung's weren't, on the jury was suicide. But when the Jury was created they had no idea he'd side against them so decisively.
The problem here is that both sides had patents to defend. Which means that it would be in his interest to rule all patents valid. By ignoring Samsung's he's created a precedent by which his patent could be ignored.
So in 20/20 hindsight Samsung should have thrown him off (and they probably could have), but they couldn't know he'd find against them at the beginning of the trial.
One of Apple's biggest assets is their design, look, feel, etc (Trade dress). Did you expect apple to take it laying down?
Eh, Apple is getting screwed either way. Even if they win, they lose. Before this trial, consumers in the US mentally lumped Samsung in with Motorola, Sony, and a half-dozen other also-rans. Now Apple is claiming "Samsung copies our products!", "Consumers can't tell the difference!". The longer this case drags out, the more coverage it gets, and the more consumers are going to believe those claims through repetition.
Apple has rebranded Samsung to be in their league. Normally, you can't buy that kind of advertising at any price. Samsung got a bargain at $1B
Possible, but unlikely.
The spin people are more likely to believe is that Samsung's products are by definition rip-offs of Apple, and therefore anybody who pays money for them has been ripped off. And Samsung just doesn't have the marketing chops to beat that spin.
On the one hand your arguments make sense individually. You can prove all Apple's patents are absurd.
On the other there was no useful tablet computer before the iPad. You can instantly tell whether a phone was pre-iPhone or post-iPhone at a glance. And there's no way you're spending money on the pre-iPhone model even if it's got 1TB of memory.
That is, by definition, the kind of innovation that the patent system is designed to protect.
Dude,
He wasn't offended. He was stunned.
If you're pricing a MacBook you have already decided there are two over-riding specs you want:
1) It has to be absolutely seamlessly integrated into the Apple ecosystem of devices. I don't doubt it's possible to get buy with a Dell, an iPad, and an Android phone as your primary devices but it's a lot less seamless that way. And by the way, I consider a single dialog box or preference a "seam."
2) It has to be supported in a physical retail store so I can show a tech support dude the company trusts exactly my problem with no hassles.
RAM, HD space, Video Card, etc. are nice additions to those specs, but if HP-Compaq/Dell/whatever is charging more then free they still lose.
I would argue that Apple's biggest asset is the apple symbol they stamp on all their products. It seems to have magical properties to make the average consumer deaf to all other alternative products.
Yes the properties of my MacBook are truly magical.
1) It understands the data from my previous computer (a Mac Mini) with absolutely no hassle.
2) It is supported by a company with a retail store I can get to on public transit. This company charges a premium, but has ridiculously generous tech support people who once replaced my entire motherboard after I told them I spilled Doctor Pepper on it.
3) If I had money to spare for a tablet or a smartphone those would just work. There'd be no compatibility issues. Moreover it would be trivial to find out which models of iPhone each program worked on. There'd be no "Oh shit, this particular model from Motorola has a screen 10 pixels too narrow, so the interface on that game doesn't work.
4) My family is acclimated to me as a Mac-User. They do not give me frantic calls for their Windows problems very often. My Mac-using sister has access to a Genuis Bar.
5) I've been a Macuser since System 7 was new. I have literally forgotten more tricks on the proper maintenance of Macs then I have ever known for non-Apple products.
The fact is I have the technical skills to ignore 1, 3, and 5. However this would have the dual disadvantages that a) I'd be unable to ask for support for myself in a) retail environment and b) I'd get a lot of calls from three time zones and people asking what to do with their Windows.
The story was not supporting the coup, it was after the coup. It was reporting on Correa's response, claiming he was too heavy-handed.
If there was a similar situation in the US today (right-wing nuts seizing the Oval Office, demanding increased military pay, but their rebellion is put down with some loss of life) DFoxNews would definitely have a guy on Hannitty claiming Obama was high-handed and that he should be arrested for judicial murder. And they wouldn't get fined for it, or in any official trouble whatsoever.
I do notice that Correa has manipulated the politics of this brilliantly. A violent police strike is a "coup," therefore he can crush it. Since he called it a "coup" he can also destroy any media organization that criticizes his handling of the matter in any way. He is magically above reproach. His minions can sentence anyone who disagrees with him to three years in jail, and a $40 million fine. He gets credit for not sending his opponents to jail, but (since under the Constitution he wrote he can't quash the fine) all opposition to his rule in the media becomes impossible.
I was all set to agree with you guys completely, until I saw the shirt. It repeats the acronym ZOMG a half-dozen times. As someone who has never sent (and will never send) a text message my first thought was that ZOMG is a variant of ZOG, Zionist Occupation Government; which is the acronym neo-Nazis use whenever they're pissed that the Feds won't let them murder Jewish people. I googled it, and found it's harmless, solely because I couldn't figure out whether it meant Zionist Occupied Military Government or Zionist Occupation Military Government. To anybody a) knowledgeable about white supremacism and b) not knowledgeable about the new variant of OMG going around this shirt does not look like a joke the ZOMGs that are supposed make it more whimsical look like a threat.
Don't get me wrong. I love the guy. Poopstrong's ability to get health insurance to actually cover his cancer treatment was great. And he probably wouldn't have been in trouble if his name had been John Freeman. But sometimes you just got to understand that humor does not translate generations, and making a joke old people won't get about blowing up a plane is not adult behavior.
Alaska doen't count. It has no cities over a million. It's largest city is only 290k. Anchorage area is 380k. In terms of City proper if you're in the US you have to be in NY, TX, PA, IL or AZ. No other states have cities with a million people in them.
In terms of Metro area you could be a lot more states, but you're tied to the bit of the state least likely to include the anti-government rural types your strategy depends on.
I didn't say Wikileaks were lying, or breaking their word, or anything like that. I said they were assholes who got the opponents of oppressive regimes locked up because their previous strategy (which involved editing the cables so names those folks couldn't be identified) wasn't getting Lord Julian enough face-time on CNN.
And yes, in Zimbabwe opposing the regime is illegal. Which means "freeing the information" that two Generals opposed the regime constitutes both a) exposing crime, and b) supporting dictatorship.
It's trivial to find reports of Correa screwing with journalists. A $40 million fine for demanding the president be arrested for crimes against humanity? If Bush or Obama did that the US would not have a budget deficit. We'd also have precisely zero media outlets left, because not even the richest American media outlets could pay that.
Choosing to prosecute those guys, which earns them a three-year sentence, and then pretending you're completely innocent by pardoning them? It's a classic move of somebody who wants to control information a little more, but not a lot more, and given that the pardon can't erase the $40 million fine, which killed their newspaper.
1. She still doesn't know Swedish. Which means she cannot read any actual Court documents. She can read translations but those are almost certainly prepared by people sympathetic to Wikileaks and thus not trustworthy sources.
2. If this is her argument she really doesn't understand Swedish Law. Mrs. Ny is not a Prosecutor assigned to a different County of Sweden, she's the original Prosecutor's boss. Being overruled by the boss is, indeed, unusual, but it's not suspicious.
3. You're missing the point. Wolf clearly knows that Rove is right-wing and Bergstrom left-wing. She doesn't mention it in her article because she knows most that starting an article by accusing the Moderates of being out to get Assange, and ending it by saying prominent Social Democrats are in on it; would destroy her credibility. Rather then do the smart thing and leave the latter accusation out, she includes both. This implies that if there are any other little problems with her case you won't see them. She'll gloss them over and hope you don't know to do the research.
As for her ability to understand Swedish law vs. Rove's ability to understand the politics; there's a key difference:
Rove made his name by building databases. It's called micro-targeting, and it's credited by some with beating John Kerry by increasing right-wing turnout (Kerry lost by 2.4 points, the rule-of-thumb is a superior turnout operation is worth 2-3 points). That experience is very relevant to politics anywhere. I don't like the man, and I believe quite a lot of bad things about him, but I have to say he's exactly the guy I'd want to talk to for a few hours if I was a right-wing candidate running for office anywhere.
OTOH, Wolf is coming to a legal system cold specifically to research a single politically-charged case. She does not know the language. And she's asking people, many of whom have an ideological axe to grind, very complex questions about a very unusual case.
Which laws? He is not a U.S. citizen so I would have thought he is under no obligation to keep U.S. secrets "secret". He has not broken any Australian laws - the Australian government has admitted as much.
Also, why hasn't charges been laid against the major media owners? I thought they published the documents before it was even put on the Wikileaks site - and are definitely under U.S. jurisdiction.
Obligation is irrelevant. In theory Anna Chapman's Russian spy ring had no obligation to not spy on the US, but they were still guilty of breaking US Law.
In theory Wikileaks could be nailed for leaking classified information. Their sole defense is that they're a media organization, protected by various US Laws, particularly the First Amendment. The problem with that is that a) no leaking organization has ever been granted such a status, and b) such status is generally partially dependent on you making damn sure most of your information won;t get people killed. Wikileaks almost certainly lost that when they dumped all their documents at once, with no effort at all to keep the names of people talking to the Embassy secret.
Ecuador (which opposes freedom of information)
What is the source for this assertion?
Admittedly it's a bit of hyperbole. They aren't as bad as real dictatorships, but Reporters Without Borders has quite a file on Correa:
http://en.rsf.org/ecuador.html
He's got a tendency to find reasons to shut down any media critical of him, including ridiculous fines and jail-time.
What U.S. laws did Assange break?
... while physically on U.S. meatspace territory or under other circumstances that would make him subject to U.S. law in the first place?
Does not matter.
Jurisdiction is only relevant if somebody exists to enforce said jurisdiction. So in the US a Federal Court might order an Alabama Court not to prosecute you for shit you did in Louisiana. As far as the Federal Courts are concerned they are God.