I think those are minor, yes. None of that is actually hacking. That kind of assistance is available to anyone with access to a search engine. Live Linux distros are freely available to anyone, they don't have to be "supplied". Assange failed to crack the password so that was just an embarrassing attempt at providing assistance.

Knowingly providing assistance to a crime is illegal, I'm not arguing that it's not. Just that in these kinds of cases it should be protected. Assisting someone in photocopying classified documents is illegal too, but should also be protected.

If Assange had ssh'd into a server and started running exploits I'd say he certainly crossed the line from journalist to hacker. His assistance may have pushed the boundaries of what is journalistic but I'd still err on the side of protecting him rather than risk diminishing the First Amendment.

At the end of the day, it was Manning that did the hacking and copying of data. Without her actions, there would have been no crime at all.

From how I read the indictment, Manning had finished dumping what she could with her level of access and then Assange urged her to do more. Then Assange provided the live Linux Distro and the process for dumping the admin password hash. Manning then supplied the hash to Assange who then began to attempt to brute force it.

I don't believe these sort of cases should be protected when they reach that level. I do believe that up until the point Assange started actively assisting Manning in compromising DoD systems from the level of access Manning had was where he crossed the line. If he would have just taken the data Manning provided at her level of access that imo is journalism. Attempting to brute force password hashes to give you admin access to DoD systems, that's a computer crime and should be treated as such.