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In Tying Bradley Manning to Julian Assange, is Gov't Trying to Silence Journalists & Whistleblowers?

966 views · Published 4 June 2013 · 3:01 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: Democracy Now! · 2013 · News & Politics

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Watch the full interview with attorney Michael Ratner on Democracy Now! at http://owl.li/lHlrg. On the opening day of Bradley Manning's trial at Fort Meade, the government sought to establish close ties between the Army whistleblower and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Military prosecutor Capt. Joe Morrow cited chat logs he said showed a "familiarity" between the two and said Manning had helped WikiLeaks edit the "Collateral Murder" video showing a fatal U.S. attack on two Reuters journalists in Iraq. Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a lawyer to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, says Manning's prosecution and the government's focus on WikiLeaks is designed to have a chilling effect on whistleblowing and the journalism it informs. "There is a major attack on truth-tellers, on journalists, and this trial really encapsulates that," Ratner says. "The sad part is there's a human being at the center of this."

"They're trying to get journalists in as co-conspirators for aiding and abetting their sources. They've started with Julian Assange. This trial is, in fact, in part -- perhaps a large part -- about getting journalists like Julian Assange and WikiLeaks."

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