WikiLeaks Saga Continues

The Santa Fe NAFUSA conference in 2011 featured a two hour panel discussion on WikiLeaks. The above photo shows panelists Charlie Savage and Valerie Plame Wilson. More than a year later, issues relating to WikiLeaks continue in the news. On the front page of this morning’s New York Times, Savage co-authors with Scott Shane an article dealing with the on-going military proceedings at Fort Meade involving Private Bradley Manning. Read: In Wiki-Leaks Case, Defense Puts Jailers on Trial.

Savage and Shane write:

It seemed incongruous that he has essentially acknowledged responsibility for the largest leak of classified material in history. The material included a quarter-million State Department cables whose release may have chilled diplomats’ ability to do their work discreetly but also helped fuel the Arab Spring; video of American helicopter crews shooting people on the ground in Baghdad who they thought were enemy fighters but were actually Reuters journalists; field reports on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and confidential assessments of the detainees locked up at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The proceedings at Fort Meade involve a request by Manning’s lawyer to dismiss the charges on the grounds that his pretrial treatment was unlawful. As The Times notes, that outcome appears unlikely. Manning still faces a court-martial, scheduled for March.

As for Julian Assange, Savage and Shane report:

As the military pursues the case against Private Manning, the Justice Department continues to explore the possibility of charging WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange, or other activists with the group, possibly as conspirators in Private Manning’s alleged offense. Federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., are still assigned to that investigation, according to law enforcement officials, but it is not clear how active they have been lately in presenting evidence to a grand jury.