Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, whose leaked video clip in 2010 exposed the murder of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians by a U.S. attack helicopter, is one of six whistle-blowers charged by the Obama administration for violating the Espionage Act of 1917. He is held in prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas awaiting trial, most likely in August. If his case or any of the others ends up in the Supreme Court, as some expect will happen, a ruling in favor of the government would instantly criminalize all disclosures of classified information to the public.
The act has been used against whistle-blowers only three times before Obama took office.
Manning is accused of giving 700,000 hacked documents and video clips to whistle-blower website WikiLeaks. In the now notorious video clip of the helicopter killings, a Reuters reporter and his driver were also shown getting killed by the U.S. soldiers in an Apache helicopter.
Manning faces 22 charges under the Espionage Act including aiding the enemy, theft of public property or records and wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet. If convicted, he could get life in jail without parole.
The other six leakers who are currently awaiting trial have also worked for various government agencies. They include: Shamai Leibowitz, a translator for the FBI; Thomas Drake, a whistle-blower for the NSA; Stephen Kim, who was with the State Department, and Jeffrey Sterling and John Kyriakou, who worked for the CIA.
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