A US Army intelligence analyst has been charged in connection with the leaking of classified video and documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. Army Specialist Bradley Manning is accused of releasing video of a July 2007 attack in which US military gunships indiscriminately kill twelve Iraqis and wound several others, including two children. In addition, Manning is also charged with passing on over fifty State Department cables. He faces up to fifty-two years in prison. Manning was detained while serving in Iraq in May after an acquaintance said he had taken responsibility for sending WikiLeaks the video along with thousands of classified US government records. Manning hasn’t retained a civilian lawyer and is being represented by a military defense attorney. In an interview with Democracy Now! last month, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg urged support for Manning should he turn out to be WikiLeaks’s source.

Daniel Ellsberg: “For forty years I’ve hoped that someone would put out information on the scale that I did, but in a more timely way than I did, before I chose to do it in my time. And Manning would be the first person in forty years to have done that, if it is true that he’s put out a great raft of cables, which he regards as criminal. And I give him — I’m very gratified, if that’s the case. And I hope he’s not the last.”