U.S. prosecutors’ indictment ofWikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could trigger a protracted fight over press freedom in the United States, warn First Amendment experts.

The Department of Justice is preparing to extradite Assange, whom British authorities arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on Thursday, to the U.S. to face a charge of criminal computer hacking conspiracy. In a seven-page indictment unsealed Thursday, federal prosecutors allege that Assange assisted former Army Pvt.Chelsea Manning in cracking a password on U.S. Department of Defense computers in order to obtain classified documents WikiLeaks later published.

Although the indictment, filed in a U.S. District Court in Virginia, focuses on Assange and computer hacking, the bigger issue is that his case raises fundamental questions about press freedom. If Assange is convicted based on what is shown in the indictment, it could give the government a dangerous precedent to use against journalists in the future, First Amendment experts say.

Much of the case comes down to prosecutors’ allegation that Assange not only received classified, illegally obtained documents but that he also actively assisted Manning in taking them from the Department of Defense. This is quite different from how journalists generally obtain classified documents, which is typically as passive recipients of the information and which is protected under the First Amendment.

“The source may be subjecting themselves to liability or may be breaking the law, but the journalist is not just by receiving it. There are reasons why we protect that kind of thing,” said Gregg Leslie, executive director of the First Amendment Legal Clinic at Arizona State University.

But where Assange’s case becomes potentially threatening to journalists and press freedom, First Amendment experts say, is that prosecutors never convincingly lay out what Assange did that would rise to the level of assisting in a criminal conspiracy. Instead, many of the actions listed in the indictment as part of a criminal conspiracy appear to be normal journalistic practices necessary to a free press, such as keeping a source anonymous and sharing information protected by a password.

“If the government is not rigorous about drawing really clear lines that do not implicate standard reporting activities, then it gets problematic,” said Stuart Karle, an adjunct professor at Columbia Journalism School and general counsel at North Base Media.

Assange is a divisive figure, and the status of WikiLeaks as a journalistic enterprise is contested, but the case goes beyond either of those issues. If Assange is convicted without more concrete proof that his actions went well beyond that of a publisher receiving classified information, then it opens up a host of questions about who else is liable.

“If this is allowed, it just really shows that any time a journalist works with a government employee or contractor, then the government could consider that conspiracy to commit a crime,” Leslie said.