Mal Fletcher comments

In any society, true freedom of speech requires that citizens take responsibility for what they say. Acclaiming individual rights without recognising concomitant social responsibilities is the beginning of anarchism.

When the authority you claim is of the moral variety - the most powerful of all - you must be seen to be above reproach, which means that you must allow yourself to be measured by some standard beyond yourself.

Assange and his crew have demonstrated no accountability except to their own internal culture and their individual consciences. In this they have diluted any potential authority as a voice for free speech among the wider population, most of whom live not in subservience to as much as respect for social structures.

Wikileaks also challenges systems of governance without offering any suggestions as to how they might be improved. It attacks not just abuses of the current system, as was the case with Watergate, but the system itself.

In this it has possibly revealed itself to be more about cyber-anarchism than cyber-activism.

As for freedom of the press, there are once more reasons to be cautious. Wikileaks says that it is a clearing house for raw data provided by whistleblowers. Then, when it suits its purpose, it claims instead to be a journalistic body, which implies the presence of rigorous fact-checking and some sort of recognised editorial oversight.

Wikileaks is staffed for the most part by non-journalists and though it is obviously a rich source of juicy material for journalists, most probably wouldn't recognize it as a legitimate organ of the press.

In recent weeks, Mr Assange has taken to calling himself a journalist. Presumably, this is to gain both credibility - 'computer hacker' doesn't sound like a reputable career - as well as political coverage against possible espionage charges in the US, where freedom of the press is held in almost sacred regard.

Yet he seems ignorant of the fact that one key tenet of journalism is that reporters should never allow themselves to become the story.

In reporting Watergate, Woodward and Bernstein and their editor Ben Bradlee were openly opposed by powerful forces of government. Yet to the end, the story about Watergate remained just that. The story-tellers did not create a plinth for themselves at its core.

Mr. Assange seems either incapable of this type of self-effacement or unwilling to attempt it. He doesn't seem to mind being the centre of attention, even if his profile or reputation are damaging to the cause.

For all of this, there are those who see the Wikileaks volunteers as the last true defenders of internet freedoms.

The original web pioneers, hovering over dim, blinking screens, saw the online world they were creating as a frontier where ideas would roam free. They foresaw a realm where people could exchange data and converse without interference from the tinkling of commercial cash registers or the meddling of lawyers and politicians.

Now, as news organisations experiment with charging for online content, as legal eagles continue to fight file-sharing and as the web becomes increasingly commercialised, cyber-purists see Wikileaks as a body of crusaders for original web culture.