The First Amendment Coalition joined with 17 press freedom and civil liberties groups calling on President Biden to pardon WikiLeaks cofounder Julian Assange.
Freedom of the Press Foundation Director of Advocacy Seth Stern said in a statement:
“Julian Assange’s case normalized the criminalization of work national security journalists do every day — talking to sources, obtaining documents from them, and publishing those documents. It gives future authoritarians at home and abroad the perfect ‘whataboutism’ to deflect from their own repressive actions, including imprisoning journalists on bogus espionage charges. A pardon won’t undo the harm the case has done to the free press or the chilling effect on journalists who now know their work can land them behind bars at the whim of the Department of Justice. But it will help reduce the damage.”