The Trump Justice Department just drastically raised the stakes in the case against Julian Assange

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was charged on Thursday with 17 new criminal counts under the Espionage Act brought by the U.S. Justice Department, a move that could change the dynamics of press freedom in the United States. Assange had previously been charged for an attempt to help Chelsea Manning crack a government password when she was sharing classified information with WikiLeaks. But the new charges attempt to criminalize Assange’s efforts to solicit and disseminate classified material, a practice that is arguably identical to the work of many reporters. Many advocates of press freedom have long worried that the U.S. government could take such a step, threatening common journalistic practice, and critics of Assange’s initial indictment warned that worse was yet to come.