One key part of the story is that the UK government basically accused Miranda (and Greenwald and Poitras) of aiding terrorists by intending to publish that classified information. That's a hairsbreath away from the charge of aiding the enemy that Manning was (just barely?) found innocent of in the US.

I think that defining news reporting to be aiding the enemy is pretty darn close to a lot of what one sees in sci-fi police states.