Drop all charges, claims against Julian Assange

Freedom of the press, the “fourth estate” of the U.S. government as envisioned by its founders, is essential to the survival of democracy.

An informed public is essential to the exercise of democracy — and to the basic power we hold as citizens: the right to vote. Citizens depend on the press, the media, to inform us of what is really going on in our society, in our government and in our foreign relations.

Presently we citizens, and our effective exercise of our democratic rights and responsibilities, are crippled by the corporateowned and operated, privatized and profit- driven media who deliver shallow, opaque, and partisan versions of the “news” and commentary to us — every day. Those honest, courageous journalists who have delivered the truth, clearly and thoroughly, are rare. Julian Assange is among those luminaries.

Assange has been vengefully hounded by governments Democratic and Republican in the United States.

He was delivering a crucial service to the American people, and is the finest kind of journalist. Presently, we are at the end of a horrible era of the trashing of the media, the twisting of truth on a daily basis, and claims that the media deliver “fake news,” while the government works overtime to force the media to deliver whatever “fake news” it desires.

It is urgent that prior to leaving office, President Trump, who has called the press/media “enemies of the people,” makes atonement for his media bashing by entirely dropping all U.S. charges and claims against Assange.

— Lynn Feinerman, Mill Valley