14 DAY TRIAL // A man has been arrested after he was linked to the leaking of a classified US military video that ended up on the whistle-blower site Wikileaks. Specialist Bradley Manning with the US military was arrested by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division at the Forward Operating Base Hammer in Iraq, where he was stationed.
He is believed to be the source of the “Collateral Murder” video published by Wikileaks, which shows a US Army helicopter attacking a group of people. It was later revealed that the attack killed 12 individuals including two Reuters employees. The video was the center of plenty of debate in the international media.
Plenty of governments and organizations tried, in the past, to uncover Wikileaks’ sources. The site takes many precautions to ensure that the identities of its contributors remain a secret. In fact, it claims that even Wikileaks staff don’t know who is supplying the leaks most of the time.
In this particular case, the man was turned in by a former hacker, Adrian Lamo, who he had contacted. Manning boasted to Lamo that he was the source of the helicopter video as well as other documents and videos that were in Wikileaks’ possession, a video of the well-known Garani air strike in Afghanistan, a US Army document that labels Wikileaks as a threat and some 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables. The second video has not been released, but Wikileaks said previously that it had it. However, the site claims it has not received the embassy cables.
Wikileaks was also unable to confirm if Manning was indeed the source of the videos and documents, claiming that it did not collect any identifiable information, but has said that, if he is indeed the source, then “he’s a national hero.” No Wikileaks source has ever been discovered through the actions of the site or its staff. Manning is currently detained, but has not been charged.