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Jeremy Scahill: Manning Verdict Posts Far-Reaching Implications for Journalists, Whistleblowers

1,965 views · Published 31 July 2013 · 2:57 · Indexed 29 October 2026

Channel: Democracy Now! · 2013 · News & Politics

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http://www.democracynow.org - In a special 90-minute broadcast covering the Bradley Manning verdict, Democracy Now! gets reaction from Jeremy Scahill, national security correspondent for The Nation. "There was a minor victory that the judge acquitted him of aiding the enemy.' As a journalist that travels to Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan and often meet with people who believe that they are in a battle against the United States and try to get their side of the story — a conviction on "aiding the enemy" would have had far-reaching implications for me and other reporters," Scahill says, who just completed a book and documentary film titled "Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield." "But not just those of us who do this in war zones. Essentially what it would have said is anyone who puts information on the internet or in any kind of publication that is downloaded by anyone the United States designates as enemies or terrorists could have been convicted of, or charged with aiding the enemy. And that would have been a very dangerous precedent to set."

Watch full coverage of the Bradley Manning trial at http://www.democracynow.org/topics/bradley_manning.

Scahill continues: 
"What this case really highlights the utter hypocrisy of the U.S. state in the face of whistleblowers and independent journalism. We are at a moment when journalism is being criminalized by this administration, by the Justice Department, where the Espionage Act is being used, where reporters are having their phone records seized. We're all paying attention to the case of Jim Risen of the New York Times who is being ordered now to testify against one of his sources. The Manning case really dramatizes that people who blow the whistle and who are participants in or observers to what they believe or war crimes. When they blow the whistle on it, they are going to face either death or life in prison. But those who are stenographers for the powerful get invited to do interviews with the President and get invited to play super-soaker fight on Joe Biden's lawn. It is a really devastating commentary that Bradley Manning might go to prison for many years, if not for his entire life, while you have legitimate war criminals walking around free who built up a torture apparatus under the Bush administration and this administration refuses to prosecute." 

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