WASHINGTON — The U.S. media made themselves vulnerable to attack by the Department of Justice by standing aside as WikiLeaks and Army Pfc. Bradley Manning were targeted several years ago, Julian Assange told The Huffington Post in an interview from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he is holed up fighting extradition to Sweden.
“All rights are fought for and maintained,” the WikiLeaks founder said. “As soon as organizations or people stop demanding that their rights be protected, then they are overrun and the current situation results.”
Ecuador has offered Assange political asylum, but Britain is threatening to arrest him once he leaves the embassy grounds.
Michael Ratner, Assange’s U.S. lawyer and the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, noted the parallels between the case against Fox News reporter James Rosen and Assange, both of whom have been accused of soliciting classified information by the U.S. government.
“That began with Julian Assange and the claim that he was not a publisher, but he was soliciting and all that. It’s really the old story of standing up at the right time for Julian, which a lot of mainstream press did not. And of course, now it’s visiting home,” Ratner said.
Assange said that the decision to charge Manning with aiding the enemy — a charge that the Army private is now fighting in a military court trial — should be a “wake-up call” to the U.S. media.
“It is a disgrace to charge [Manning with] communicating with the enemy and to make it a capital offense — to threaten to either kill him or make him spend life in prison. The prosecution has refused to drop that charge. The reason that charge is there, and it should be a wake-up to all U.S. journalists and publishers, is to establish a precedent,” said Assange.
Continue reading at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/julian-assange-bradley-manning_n_3380162.html
