Assange's claim spying is normalized merely parrots spies' long-advanced propaganda which in turn parrots normalized siphoning, stealing and monetizing information legitimated by nations, corporations, entrepreneurs, inventors, criminal orgs, leak sites, media, archives, scholars, religions, "info freedom fighters." Cpunk Dan Geer has elaborated on this, but hardly alone, like many, like Assange, it's his job and future. Assange knows that leaking is theft, as Geer knows spying is, just like hacking, encryption, privacy, anonymization, aggregation, among other lucrative normalizings. Spy agencies (and universities, especially law and business schools) have long taught the skills and practices of thievery, glorified in doctrinaire justifications and immensely malleable laws. NSA is funding dozens of universities to train digital thieves and crooks, just like The Farm and military academies train villains to do dirty, murderous work with impunity (unless kidnapped and beheaded, tortured and disappeared, shot down and AK'd at home). Corporations and NGOs hire these civilian and ex-spy-mil professional villains to do evil and propagate legitimizing propaganda, advocate weak crypto, false anonymity, and ludicrous privacy, run leak sites and secure drops to encourage ambitious, gullible, avaricious participants like Manning and Snowden to siphon and ravage, following the ignoble example of nations cum global cartels cum freedom of the press and religion which establish mutually beneficial exclusive treaties to ravage the less defendable. Assange is right to cite normalized spying and leaking as a cloak to excuse much worse. In that he is as normalized as we indignant villains blaming competitors for what we pretend to regret having to do with such pleasure.