At the hearing on Feb. 28, Private Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst who confessed to giving a vast archive of secret documents to WikiLeaks, read an extensive statement explaining what he had done. An audio file of the statement began circulating in mid-March, recorded in violation of military rules.
As the latest hearing in the case, which is scheduled to go to trial in June, got under way on Wednesday, the judge in the case, Col. Denise Lind, tightened the ground rules that reporters and bloggers must agree to in order to cover the hearings. The new rules ban cellphones and air cards from the building and require that wireless Internet service be turned off when court is in session. A technician installed a device designed to sound an alarm if a cellphone is detected.
Reporters cover the proceedings from the media center, which receives a closed-circuit video feed from the nearby courtroom. The media center is technically considered to be an extension of the courtroom, though journalists may use laptops there to take notes and write and file articles. A military public affairs officer, noting that no audio recordings from the courtroom are allowed at any court-martial, warned that any further violation could prompt Colonel Lind to shut down the media center for the trial this summer.
"To say the judge wasn't happy with what happened is an understatement," the public affairs official said, adding: "Police yourselves. If there is another violation, everyone feels the pain, not just certain individuals."
Private Manning has already pleaded guilty to 10 criminal counts in connection with leaking materials that included videos of airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan in which civilians were killed, a quarter-million diplomatic cables, assessment files of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and logs of military incident reports in war zones. The guilty pleas have exposed him to up to 20 years in prison.
But the military has charged him with more serious offenses, like aiding the enemy and violating the Espionage Act, that could result in life without parole. Prosecutors are pressing forward with trying to prove the remaining elements for the more serious charges.
The current pretrial hearing is scheduled to last three days, but a military lawyer said it may wrap up in just one because there were only a few "housekeeping" matters to deal with. Among them, it is possible that the judge may rule on whether it is necessary for an enemy to have received materials for someone to be guilty of "aiding the enemy."
