FAS

Another Leak Arrest

06.07.10 | 1 min read | Text by Steven Aftergood

The U.S. Army has arrested Spc. Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland for unauthorized disclosure of classified information.  Among other things, he is suspected of having provided the video of a 2007 Apache helicopter strike in Baghdad that killed several civilians to the Wikileaks web site, which published it online in April of this year.  The story was reported last night by Wired’s Threat Level blog.  See “U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe” by Kevin Poulsen and Kim Zetter.

Spc. Manning is currently being held in pre-trial confinement in Kuwait, according to an Army statement obtained by NPR.

His arrest is the third known apprehension of a suspected leaker during the Obama Administration, after Shamai Leibowitz and Thomas A. Drake, and seems to reflect an increasingly aggressive response to unauthorized disclosures of classified information.