He’s been hailed as a hero for allegedly publicizing classified video of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack that killed 12 civilians in Iraq, but now Pfc. Bradley E. Manning is catching heat from the military for the WikiLeaks exposé. –KA

Update: BoingBoing reports that Manning could get 52 years in jail. As Glenn Greenwald tweeted, “Torture people => imperial immunity. Shoot at unarmed rescuers & their kids => nothing. Leak evidence of war crimes => 53 yrs in prison.”

The Guardian:

A US army intelligence analyst was today charged with leaking a highly classified video of American forces killing unarmed civilians in Baghdad and secret diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.

Private Bradley Manning, who had a top-secret security clearance, has been held in military custody in Kuwait since his arrest in Iraq in May over the video, which caused great embarrassment to the US military establishment. It showed an air strike that killed a dozen people, including two Iraqis working for Reuters news agency. The air crew is heard falsely claiming to have encountered a firefight in Baghdad and then laughing at the dead. WikiLeaks gave the video the title Collateral Murder.

Manning, 22, was arrested after boasting in instant messages and emails to a high-profile former hacker, Adrian Lamo, that he passed the material to WikiLeaks along with thousands of pages of confidential American diplomatic cables.

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