Australian MPs vote overwhelmingly to demand US, UK free Assange; US lawyers pressure DOJ to drop charges - WFIN Local News

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

43% : "In the U.S., lawyers from various academic institutions across the country wrote a letter to Garland saying they "strongly urge the Department of Justice to end its efforts to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the United States and to drop the charges against him under the Espionage Act.
43% : "The lawyers further argued that the fallout from prosecuting Assange could extend beyond the Espionage Act and national security journalism, saying that the case could "enable prosecution of routine newsgathering under any number of ambiguous laws and untested legal theories" and there have already been instances where prosecutors "test the outer limits of some such theories in cases against journalists.
37% : "The Australian publisher is facing 17 charges for allegedly receiving, possessing and communicating classified information to the public under the Espionage Act, and one charge alleging a conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
37% : But a prosecution of Assange under the Espionage Act would undermine all these policies and open the door to future Attorneys General bringing similar felony charges against journalists.
36% : "No publisher had been charged under the Espionage Act until Assange, and many press freedom groups have said his prosecution sets a dangerous precedent intended to criminalize journalism.
22% : Former President Obama also commuted Manning's 35-year sentence for violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses to seven years in January 2017, and Manning, who had been imprisoned since 2010, was released later that year.
17% : But the Justice Department under former President Trump later moved to indict Assange under the Espionage Act, and the Biden administration has continued to pursue his prosecution.

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