The answer to your question to Assange:
But first, let's take a quick look at recent history. Say, around 2008-2009, somewhere around there. Remember when all those big American corporations and banks were about to go down the crapper? Companies such as GM and Chrysler, and banks such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Remember what happened to those corporations and banks? The American government deemed those corporations and banks "too big to fail", and ordered the general populace to participate in a massive bailout or two so those corporations and banks wouldn't go under.
By all accounts and rights, those corporations and banks should not exist today (or at least, not as we know them). Your "capitalism-initiated market punishment device" didn't work the way it was supposed to, because the government needed those corporations and banks to survive, and so intervened in the "market-driven natural order of things" and propped up banks that allowed un-payable loans, and gave economic CPR to corporations that paid their CEOs multi-million yearly bonuses. And the banks are still giving out bad loans and the corporations are still paying their CEOs massive bonuses and flinging their top executives around in private jets (or otherwise in first class). It doesn't matter that the banks and the corps have more or less paid back the loans the government issued to them. The problems that caused the issue to happen in the first place have been given a green light and condoned by the government that issued them those loans from that bailout.
Now think what will happen when a big, national telecorp is on the verge of imploding because their users/stockholders decide that they don't want to be monitored with the verbosity that the government wants. If that government deems that telecorp "too big to fail", you will start hearing the word "bailout" being thrown left and right (or at least a word that means the same thing as 'bailout', and questions of 'Is this really a bailout' being asked by the talking heads on your television). Market regulations and laws in general mean NOTHING to a government that sees its own mortality inching ever closer to its end. The national telecorp will be shielded from the wrath of its users as the government orders its civilian population--including said users--to pay the costs of running said telecorp. Neither the users nor the rest of the population will have a choice.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
