Wendy Carlisle: Julian Assange has replaced Osama bin Laden as the most wanted man in the world.

Former Republican speaker Newt Gingrich says he's a terrorist.*

Newt Gingrich: Information warfare is warfare, and Julian Assange is engaged in warfare. Information terrorism which leads to people getting killed, is terrorism, and Julian Assange is engaged in terrorism.

Wendy Carlisle: Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell calls him a high tech terrorist.

Reporter: Let me ask you about this Wikileaks controversy. How much damage has been done here? What's the real story here that you are focused on?

Mitch McConnell: I think the man is a high tech terrorist. He's done ...

Reporter: ...Assange?

Mitch McConnell: ..Yes, enormous damage to our country.*

Wendy Carlisle: Tomorrow Julian Assange reappears in a British court to fight the latest attempt by Swedish authorities to extradite him to Sweden to face questions over sexual assault allegations.

It's the latest twist in the Wikileaks story - a Swedish sex scandal that should, on the face of it, have nothing to do with US plans to bring Julian Assange to heel.

Assange - who has not been charged with anything, is currently under house arrest at a 600-acre estate in the UK. He must wear a tracking bracelet on his ankle. He is under a 10pm curfew, and his legal team is working furiously to defeat the extradition order.

Julian Assange.

Julian Assange: There is an attempt to gag my Swedish lawyer and indeed an application as part of the extradition proceedings to have me held incommunicado in Sweden. We have also heard today from one of my US lawyers yet to be confirmed, that a serious matter that there may be a US indictment for espionage for me, coming from a secret US Grand Jury investigation.

Reporter: What more can you tell us about that side, the US prosecution?

Julian Assange: Obviously it's extremely serious and one of the concerns that we've had since I've been in the UK, is whether the extradition proceedings to Sweden which is occurring in a very strange and unusual way, is actually an attempt to get me into a jurisdiction which will then make it easier to extradite me to the United States.

Wendy Carlisle: As a Hollywood thriller, and there are a number in the works, the Julian Assange story doesn't get any better.

Hello, and welcome to Background Briefing. I'm Wendy Carlisle.

Sweden is where Julian Assange chose to put the Wikileaks server deep inside a former nuclear bunker in the White Mountain.

It was meant to be a safe haven from those who might try to shut him down.

Our story starts in 2006 when Julian Assange started Wikileaks. He devised a unique way for whistleblowers to upload documents. It guaranteed anonymity. Even Wikileaks did not know who was uploading into their digital dropboxes. The model was an instant success. Corruption was exposed in Kenya, and when the Icelandic economy went belly up, it was Wikileaks who revealed the dodgy practices of the banks. And it was Wikileaks who published secret scientology manuals showing the inner workings of the sect.

For Julian Assange, Sweden was the perfect safe haven, but it's turned out to be far from that.

In August last year, Julian Assange began a lecture tour in Sweden. The theme was 'The first victim of war is truth'.

It appears that he had affairs with two women; they found out about each other, compared notes. The details are murky, shabby even. One of the women had blogged about how to exact revenge from two-timing men.

In Sweden, sex without a condom, even when consensual, can be considered a form of sexual assault. Apparently there was concern about unsafe sex, and the women went to the police.

As the story broke in the Swedish tabloids, there were wild rumours: was the CIA involved? Even Karl Rove, now working for a Swedish politician, was rumoured to have his fingers all over the Julian Assange honey trap story.

Assange offered himself up for interviews with the Swedish authorities, but they never happened, and finally Assange sought permission from the Swedish prosecutor to leave the country.

It was granted.

And then suddenly the investigation was revived.

Swedish Chief Prosecutor Eve Finn: I can confirm that Julian Assange yesterday evening was arrested in his absence and the allegations are molestation and rape.

Wendy Carlisle: Then 24 hours later, the arrest warrant was dropped.

Swedish Chief Prosecutor Eve Finn: The prosecutor in question has decided that there is no longer reason to believe that Mr Assange has committed rape, and therefore there's no longer a warrant for his arrest.

Wendy Carlisle: The Swedish investigation went quiet.

Assange was in London. He was dealing with the world's most respected news organisations, The Guardian, der Spiegel, El Pais, Le Monde, and The New York Times over the release of Iraqi and Afghan war logs; the stories they generated delivered weeks of scoops to the mainstream press.

Newsreader #1: Italy's Foreign Minister is calling this leak 'a diplomatic 9/11' which could blow up relations between countries.

Newsreader # 2: French President Sarkozy is called 'a naked emperor'. Afghan President Karazai is driven by paranoia. Libya's Gaddafi is said to have a voluptuous blonde Ukrainian nurse as his constant companion.

Wendy Carlisle: Suddenly, the Swedish investigation was reactivated. In December, Interpol released a red notice. Julian Assange was wanted for sex crimes, and then a European arrest warrant was issued. All this so that the Swedish authorities could have, as they put it, 'a chat' with Julian Assange.

On December 7th, Assange surrendered himself to the British police. He was considered a flight risk, refused bail, and spent ten days in solitary confinement at Belmarsh prison.

Just before Christmas he was released. The 200,000 pound bail was posted by his celebrity pals, including Michael Moore, Ken Loach, John Pilger and Bianca Jagger.

Julian Assange: It's very nice to be free for Christmas and to smell the fresh air of Norfolk. Solitary confinement in the bottom of a Victorian prison is a significant experience. While I am free, I am under house arrest, in a way that seriously interferes with my privacy, as an investigative journalist dealing with the most sensitive materials in the world, and sensitive sources. Obviously that is a compromising position for me to be in, in relation to my work.

Wendy Carlisle: A few weeks later, in early January, Julian Assange's extradition hearing began in London. His defence team were calling it a show trial. Geoffrey Robertson QC argued that key parts of the investigation were missing from the extradition documents. Where - he asked, were the SMS texts between the two women in which they allegedly discussed selling their story to the tabloids? Why were the Swedish prosecutors trying to extradite Assange just for questioning? And why couldn't they use established procedures like an interview, at the Swedish Embassy in London? Geoffrey Robertson, QC, said the real game was that once in Sweden, the Americans would find it much easier to extradite him to Guantanamo Bay.

When the US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, P.J. Crowley heard this, he tweeted 'The claim by the lawyer for Julian Assange that his client could go to Guantanamo Bay is pure fantasy. Save it for the movie.'

John Humphreys: The Swedish government wants him extradited...

Wendy Carlisle: Meanwhile in the media, the story was all about the sex crime.

Here is Julian Assange being interviewed by legendary BBC interviewer, John Humphreys.

John Humphreys: If all you have is accusation and denial, which is what we have here, we know what the women you're alleged to have assaulted have said, because we've read it in the newspapers..

Julian Assange: ...well they have never said the word 'rape'.

John Humphreys: No, but we know what...

Julian Assange: ...they have never said that at all, and that is something that being deduced by other parties.

John Humphreys: Nonetheless, we know what their allegations are, we know ...

Julian Assange: ...we don't know...

John Humphreys: ...we know what we have read in the newspapers people know what they are reported to have said in various forums, and that is that you assaulted them in ways that they did not want to be assaulted, that as I say, in one case the agreed to have sex with you, apparently. She insisted you use a condom, the condom got ripped and in another case the woman said she went to sleep, she woke up and you were trying to have her. You were having sex with her without a condom. These are serious allegations, some people regard them, that second one in particular, as rape. Now we know that what is being said about you. Is there any truth in any of those things?

Julian Assange: No.

John Humphreys: You deny them completely, but you did have sex with the women.

Julian Assange: We know there's all sort of nonsense in the tabloid press and all sorts of scheming conducted for all sorts...

John Humphreys: ...but you haven't denied having sex with those women.

Julian Assange: No, I haven't denied that.

John Humphreys: So you did have sex with those women?

Julian Assange: I have always tried in this case and in my other dealings, to be a private person, and to not speak about matters that are private ...

John Humphreys: ...this is now public so I'm asking you the question did you have sex with those women?

Wendy Carlisle: On the other side of the Atlantic, Assange's supporters, including former CIA agent turned activist, Ray McGovern, was asking journalists to rethink their coverage of the story.

Reporter: So you really think we, and I say 'we', I'm a journalist, you think we had it wrong and that he is actually not a pariah, we should be praising him and following his lead, rather than calling him a pariah?

Ray McGovern: Yes, actually, with all due respect, I think you should be following his example. Seek out the secrets; find out why it is that my taxpayer money is going to fund trafficked young boys performing dances in women's clothing before the Afghan Security Forces who we are recruiting to take over after we leave. Take a look at the documents and see the abhorrent activities that our government has endorsed or done through its contractors, and then tell me you don't think the Americans can handle that? Well I think they can handle it, but they can't handle it if they don't have it.

Wendy Carlisle: It was as if the world was suddenly getting acquainted with the mysterious, almost Warhol-looking Assange. He'd burst onto the stage from nowhere. A mercurial figure from Australia, with the steely gaze and baritone voice.

He was being courted by the intellectual A list; a surprise speaker at the prestigious TED Conference of ideas at Oxford University.

He was asked to introduce himself by the host.

Host: So help us understand a bit more about you personally, how you came to do this. And I think I read that as a kid, you went to 37 different schools. Can that be right?

Julian Assange: Well my parents were in the movie business and then on the run from a cult, so the combination between the two (LAUGHTER)

Host: I mean a psychologist might say that's a recipe for breeding paranoia.

Julian Assange: What, the movie business? (LAUGHTER) Yes.

Wendy Carlisle: Born in Townsville in 1971, it was a life on the road. His mother and stepfather were almost nomadic, living in dozens of towns and alternative communities of Queensland and Northern New South Wales. His was the childhood of your classic left-wing hippies.

Julian Assange cites Joh Bjelke-Petersen as the figure who drove the family's politics and activism. But if it was Joh who inspired him, the soundtrack was provided by the rock anthems of Midnight Oil.

Julian Assange is a man shaped by time and place.

MIDNIGHT OIL

Wendy Carlisle: The influence of Midnight Oil on the young Julian Assange is clearly spelt out in the book Underground, about the hacker scene of Australia in the 1980s.

Written by Melbourne academic, Suelette Dreyfus and researched by Julian Assange himself, it recounts the story of Assange's involvement with the hacker group, the International Subversives, who in the late 1980s led the AFP on a 4-year chase as they hacked into the servers of NASA, RMIT, ANU and the Canadian telecommunications giant, NORTEL.

At the age of 19, Assange was found guilty in a Melbourne court. They did no damage, said the judge, but it was illegal. He was fined and put on a good behaviour bond.

Julian Assange sees himself as a grey-hatted hacker. It's a term meaning hackers who do good and not harm.

At the TED conference at Oxford University, he was asked what motivated him.

Julian Assange: Core values in capable, generous men, do not create victims, they nurture victims. That's something from my father and something from other capable, generous men who have been in my life.

Host: Capable generous men do not create victims, they nurture victims.

Julian Assange: Yes. But I'm a combative person, so I'm not actually so big on the nurture, but there is another way of nurturing victims, which is to police perpetrators of crime, and so that is something that has been in my character for a long time.

Wendy Carlisle: Julian Assange's world seems black and white. There is good. And there is evil. Journalism is a way of righting the wrongs.

Julian Assange: When journalism is good, it is controversial by its nature. It is the role of good journalism to take on powerful abusers and when powerful abusers are taken on, there is always a reaction. So we see that controversy and I believe that is a good thing to engage in, and in this case it will show the true nature of war, and then the public can see what's really going on and take steps to address the problem.

Wendy Carlisle: When the Afghan and Iraqi war logs were published, and then confidential US Embassy cables, the accusation was that people would die as a result. But to date, no-one has. But that fact didn't stop US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton from attacking Wikileaks.

Hillary Clinton: Now I am aware that some may mistakenly applaud those responsible, so I want to set the record straight. There is nothing laudable about endangering innocent people and there is nothing brave about sabotaging the peaceful relations between nations on which our common security depends. There have been examples in history in which official conduct has been made public, in the name of exposing wrongdoings or misdeeds. This is not one of those cases.

Wendy Carlisle: Indeed, the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, now says the impact on US foreign policy has been modest.

Robert Gates: Now I've heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it's in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.

Wendy Carlisle: But in Australia, Prime Minister Julia Gillard was denouncing Wikileaks activities as illegal.

Julia Gillard: I absolutely condemn the placement of this information on the Wikileaks website; it's a grossly irresponsible thing to do, and an illegal thing to do.

Wendy Carlisle: But to this date, Julian Assange has not been charged with any crime, anywhere in the world.

As the political storm grew, US Senator, Joe Lieberman, Chair of the powerful Senate Committee on Homeland Security, said Wikileaks had compromised national security and put lives at risk. No responsible company, he said, should assist Wikileaks in its effort to disseminate stolen materials.

The effect was immediate. Paypal shut down its links with Wikileaks, then Visa and MasterCard shut off the flow of money from donations.

And then something astonishing happened: a worldwide group of cyber activists, going under the name Anonymous, commenced a wave of denial of server cyber attacks on Visa, Mastercard and Paypal.

For a few hours at least, it took their web pages down.

Anonymous used You Tube to explain its actions.

Anonymous: Dear citizens of the internet,

These last few days lots of us have been using LOIC to attack the websites of those who have undertaken action to prevent Wikileaks from operating properly. While this certainly helped us to raise public awareness for ourselves, Anonymous, Wikileaks and the battle for the free flow of information, all this remained indeed rather innocent. Although it has sent a strong message to anyone to better think twice before messing with the Wikileaks, it nevertheless poses no real threat whatsoever to those who are in power.

Wendy Carlisle: Late last year, as the tension escalated over Wikileaks, small rallies sprang up all over the world in protest. In Vancouver, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, the United States and the UK, and in Sydney, with just 36 hours notice, a crowd of 500 gathered at Sydney Town Hall.

Simon Butler: Thanks everyone. I want to begin by sending out a big message to the CEOs of Mastercard, Visa and PayPal (BOOS) and the message is those companies which cut their ties with Wikileaks, and then have this cyber attack and shutdown, I would say to you 'Bet you didn't see that coming'.

Woman #1: We're here to support Julian and Wikileaks, I strongly disapprove of my government's reaction to this, I think it's wrong.

Wendy Carlisle: What is it about the government's reaction that you find so wrong.

Woman# 1: I think it's appalling that he's an Australian citizen and they don't seem prepared to support him, and there's a pressure that the US is putting on other countries and this stumped-up charge I think in Sweden, and I just think it's wrong, and we're here to support Julian, and we want him to be free, and we want him to continue what he's doing.

Woman #2: I'm basically supporting freedom of information. I think Wikileaks is the future of journalism, and I think what he's doing, there's no way that it's terrorism, it's just freedom of information. What his releases have been published by various newspapers around the world that haven't been prosecuted, and I can't see how he's doing anything illegal. For example, the fact that Visa, Mastercard and PayPal have shut off their funding source is ridiculous, because they haven't shut off funding sources for other groups, which could more accurately be called terrorist groups. KKK.

Wendy Carlisle: ..Ok still getting funding, yes the Ku Klux Klan, yes are still able to use PayPal I think.

Woman #2: Yes, that's right. So something wrong about that. There's something wrong about the amount of pressure that can make that happen. So I don't know quite where it's all coming from, but it's ridiculous. So we're here today to support Julian and what he's doing. I think it's all in the public interest and the public will know what's going on.

Woman# 1: I haven't been a rally in 30 years, so it takes a lot to get me out to a rally.

Woman #2: Precisely, not since the daysof Vietnam.

Young man: And Wikileaks obviously is part of our generation.

Wendy Carlisle: It's part of your generation.

Young man: Yes. Even teenagers like us, we can be a part of it. And we can be part of supporters, like the hippie movement of the '70s and '60s.

Young woman: And I reckon it's kind of part of our generation, because we're the ones who've sort of grown up with the internet and so we're kind of already used to the idea of democracy on the internet, and net neutrality and that whole issue, like you know, having freedom of speech. But I think it's an issue that can be embraced by people of all ages and anyone obviously like sort of the baby boomers who lived through the Vietnam War, they should be all over this and they should be really pushing it, but it's just not having the same effect that say the Pentagon papers did in the days of the Vietnam War and I think that's really sad like it's kind of - it reflects our generation but it also reflects the apathy of our generation.

Wendy Carlisle: Wikileaks might be part of the dot com generation, but most people had never heard of Julian Assange or Wikileaks until April last year, when Wikileaks released a video depicting American soldiers killing at least 18 people, including 2 Reuters journalists, in Baghdad.

Audio from Apache Helicopter : All right firing ... line 'em all up ... c'mon fire ... keep shooting ...

Wendy Carlisle: The soldiers in the Apache helicopter mistakenly thought that they'd found a group of insurgents carrying the rocket launchers along a road in Baghdad. It turns out that the rocket launchers were really television cameras. There were children injured as the car they were in stopped and tried to help the injured.

Audio from Apache Helicopter: Crazy Horse 18, a vehicle appears to be disabled. There was approximately 4 to 5 individuals in vehicle...

Wendy Carlisle: The video, which Reuters had been trying to get for two years using FOI, finally saw the light of day, courtesy of Wikileaks.

On the internet, it went viral.

Julian Assange and the Wikileaks machine was now the talk of the town.

The man the United States government alleges leaked the embassy cables and the Apache helicopter video is Private Bradley Manning, a 23-year-old intelligence officer, who was stationed in West Baghdad.

Bradley Manning has been charged with illegally downloading classified material and disseminating it to unauthorised people. He faces 50 years in jail.

When Wired magazine broke the news of Bradley Manning's arrest, it was revealed they got the scoop because their source was the man who turned Bradley Manning over to the FBI.

The source was a former convicted hacker, Adrian Lamo.

Adrian Lamo had allegedly had a series of internet conversations with Bradley Manning over a period of three or four days in May last year. In these conversations, Bradley Manning allegedly confessed to being the leaker

Adrian Lamo had kept copies of these chat logs. He gave one to Wired magazine, and the other one to the FBI.

Background Briefing has dramatised excerpts of these alleged internet chat room conversations.

Private Bradley Manning.

Bradley Manning: Hypothetical question: if you had free rein over classified networks for long periods of time, say, 8 to 9 months and you saw incredible things, awful things, things that belonged in the public domain and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington D.C, what would you do?

Adrian Lamo: Depends. What are the particulars?

Wendy Carlisle: On Adrian Lamo's account, it was two days into these conversations that he decided to turn Bradley Manning over to the authorities.

Bradley Manning: Let's just say someone I know intimately well has been penetrating US classified networks, and been transferring that data from the classified networks over the air gap on a commercial network computer, sorting the data, compressing it, encrypting it and uploading it to a crazy white-haired Aussie who can't seem to stay in one country very long.

Wendy Carlisle: In this account, Adrian Lamo is pressing Bradley Manning for more information. Who was the crazy, white-haired dude that he was talking about?

Bradley Manning: Crazy white-haired dude equals Julian Assange. In other words I have made a huge mess. I'm sorry, but I'm just emotionally fractured.

Wendy Carlisle: According to Adrian Lamo's chat log, Bradley Manning had boasted that the Apache helicopter tape was just sitting there on a central server, there for the taking.

Bradley Manning: It was vulnerable as fuck, it was forwarded to Wikileaks and god knows what happens now. The reaction to the video gave me immense hope. CNN's report was overwhelmed. Twitter exploded. People who saw it, knew there was something wrong.

Wendy Carlisle: The question that begs answering is are the chat logs authentic?

Adrian Lamo is an FBI informant with credibility problems.

But even if the logs are authentic, is Bradley Manning telling the truth? The hacker culture is one of lies and exaggerations. It's possible that news of the leak was circulating freely in the underground. It's possible that Bradley Manning was boasting to his new friend, a story based on half-truths and fantasy.

Besides, three million people other than Bradley Manning had access to these classified US diplomatic cables, and the truth about the chat logs has not yet been tested in court.

In this next excerpt from the alleged chat logs, Bradley Manning is asked what's in the US diplomatic cables.

Bradley Manning: Crazy, almost criminal political backdealings. The non-P.R. versions of world events and crises, all kinds of stuff like everything from the build-up to the Iraq War during Powell, to what the actual content of 'aid packages' is. For instance, P.R. that the US is sending aid to Pakistan includes funding for water/food/clothing - that much is true. It includes that, but the other 85% of it is for F-16 fighters and munitions to aid in the Afghanistan effort, so the US can call in Pakistanis to do aerial bombing instead of Americans potentially killing civilians and creating a P.R. crisis. There's so much, it affects everybody on earth, everywhere there's a US post, there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed - Iceland, the Vatican, Spain, Brazil, Madagascar. If it's a country and it's recognised by the US as a country, it's got dirt on it. It's open diplomacy, worldwide anarchy in CSV format. It's Climategate with a global scope, and breathtaking depth. It's beautiful, and horrifying.

Wendy Carlisle: It seems that Bradley Manning was clearly disenchanted. Amongst his duties was organising morale boosting barbeques for soldiers. He was also an intelligence officer with access to a vast amount of information.

Bradley Manning: I think the thing that got me the most, that made me re-think the world more than anything, was watching 15 detainees taken by the Iraqi federal police for printing 'anti-Iraqi literature'. The Iraqi federal police wouldn't co-operate with US forces, so I was instructed investigate the matter, find out who the 'bad guys;' were, and how significant this was for Iraqi federal police. It turned out they'd printed a scholarly critique against Prime Minister Maliki. I had an interpreter read it for me, and when I found out that it was benign political critique titled 'Where did the money go?' and following the corruption trail within the PMs Cabinet, I immediately took the information and ran to the officer to explain what was going on. He didn't want to hear any of it. He told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the Iraqi federal police in finding more detainees.

Wendy Carlisle: Bradley Manning's final offering to Adrian Lamo was another fantastic story. It was about how he actually got the thousands of classified cables out. He says he sat at his computer at Operation station Hammer in west Baghdad, and downloaded the cables onto an empty CD marked 'Lady Gaga'. He got away with it, he says, because he pretended to sing along with his headphones on.

LADY GAGA SINGS

Bradley Manning: A perfect example of how not to do INFOSEC. I listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga's 'Telephone', while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history, pretty simple and unglamorous, weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis. A perfect storm. Sounds pretty bad, huh?

Adrian Lamo: Kinda.

Wendy Carlisle: But who is Adrian Lamo?

He's a 27-year-old convicted hacker who broke into the websites of The New York Times and yahoo.com. Now he describes himself as a threat analyst and a journalist.

Adrian Lamo enjoys the media spotlight. He has produced a documentary about his own hacking adventures. He has appeared on many television and internet shows, explaining his role in apprehending Private Bradley Manning over Wikileaks.

Adrian Lamo even issues press releases alerting the media to his latest take on the Wikileaks story. In this interview excerpt on You Tube, Adrian Lamo explains how he went from being a Wikileaks supporter to an FBI informant.

Adrian Lamo: Why did I do it? Quite simply put, because I did not believe that any individual or small group of individuals could vet these documents to a degree sufficient to be able to say without any sort of doubt that they would not result in loss of human life. And the Chairman of Joint Chiefs has come out and said that the founder of Wikileaks may very well have blood on his hands. The President of Afghanistan has expressed his outrage.

Wendy Carlisle: Adrian Lamo claims he met Bradley Manning on Twitter.

Adrian Lamo: My contact with Manning was - as Bob Dylan would put it - a simple twist of fate. I had posted a message on Twitter encouraging individuals who had downloaded my documentary illegally, to donate money to Wikileaks.

Wendy Carlisle: Adrian Lamo thinks Julian Assange is motivated by two things.

Adrian Lamo: I'd have to go with money and ego.

Wendy Carlisle: Julian Assange he says, makes things up.

Adrian Lamo: When someone is in the public eye to that degree and takes themselves too seriously they start to believe that light really will bend around them, that they can manufacture reality.

Wendy Carlisle: But in this story it's hard to know who to believe. Adrian Lamo himself is prone to making claims that can't be supported by the evidence.

As one example, Adrian Lamo says that Julian Assange offered Bradley Manning a job, and that Manning told him this during their internet chats.

This claim, that was published in Wired magazine, is not supported by any evidence. And it's important because it says there was a relationship between Bradley Manning and Julian Assange and at the moment Adrian Lamo is the star witness against Bradley Manning.

You're listening to Background Briefing on ABC Radio National, and I'm Wendy Carlisle.

For seven months now, Private Bradley Manning has been held in a pre-trial detention facility in Virginia. He's in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.

The only two people who have been visiting him are his attorney and a researcher from MIT in Boston by the name of David House. House believes that Bradley Manning's conditions of detention are inhumane.

David House: His only exercise is walking for an hour each day in chains in an empty room in circles. He is not allowed exercise in his cell. He's kept in his cell for 23 hours a day, and is not allowed any personal effects in his cell. There are few newspapers or international news, and he hasn't been outside in about six weeks, the last time I talked to him. But the exact reason he's kept under such strict conditions was because of something called a POI order, which is Prevention of Injury Order, and a POI order is something that marine and army uses. I think you'll find they usually kept under it for about a week when they first come to the facility, to help them acclimatise. Bradley has been under a POI order for 8-1/2 months now despite calls from his military psychologist and from his attorney, David Coombes to lift the POI order, the military has been enforcing it - essentially the result is solitary confinement and sensory deprivation.

Wendy Carlisle: David House says Private Bradley Manning's condition is declining.

David House: As time progressed around November, October I started to notice that Bradley's mental and physical state was entering a decline, and mentally he had trouble keeping up with topics of conversation. He would sometimes get lost and have to change the subject entirely if things got too confusing for him. Physically, his appearance has degraded completely. He's gone from a marine of muscle, to someone who looked as if they hadn't exercised in months, which he has not. He is not allowed to. He's very ashen-faced, bags under his eyes, and looks very unhealthy physically. So I think conditions of confinement are definitely taking their toll on him.

Wendy Carlisle: It's also taking its toll on people who might ordinarily speak out against the treatment of Bradley Manning.

David House: The government investigation in Boston has had very profound impact upon people who would otherwise be standing up to support Manning. These are people who are going to MIT, going to Harvard, going to other area universities, that now feel intense pressure from the US government, not to speak out, not to say anything, because if they do, then the defence contracts in their research labs may be revoked for even saying they support Manning.

Wendy Carlisle: Is this what people are saying to you?

David House: Yes, the academic scene in Boston is such that people are afraid of speaking out for Manning. Aside from that we've seen Manning supporters, myself included, actually being harassed by the US government. I was flying back from Chicago last November and the flight I actually had my computer seized and searched, and all my electronics seized by the US government. I was never informed I was a person of interest in any investigation. And their questions related to why I was doing work with the Manning Support campaign, and was it true I built the website and was it true that I organised donors?

Wendy Carlisle: Two days after Background Briefing recorded this interview, David House went to visit Bradley Manning with another journalist, Jane Hampshire. They were on the official visitor list, but after passing the checkpoints to enter the Quantico Brig where Bradley Manning is being held, the visitors were detained.

This was how the US hacker show, CHUM-FM told the story.

Man: Bradley Manning's friend, researcher David House, gets detained, harassed and threatened, along with journalist Jane Hampshire, while attempting to visit Manning during regular hours. This is an emergency broadcast of CHUM ...

Wendy Carlisle: David House and Jane Hampshire had intended to deliver to the Brig Commander a petition of 42,000 signatures calling for Bradley Manning to be taken off the Prevention of Injury order. But the petition never got through.

Bradley Manning support group member, Keith Zeiss went on CHUM-FM to explain what happened.

Keith Zeiss: They were stopped at the gate, they were detained, not allowed to go or to leave, or to go see Manning. They asked for registration. Jane Hampshire tried to provide a digital registration, and her car was towed.

Wendy Carlisle: The Bradley Manning story is now starting to attract attention. Major US networks have been reporting Pentagon sources, saying no connection has been discovered between Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.

Late last week, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell found himself under intense pressure from the press corps over why Bradley Manning was being held under the Prevention of Injury Order.

Geoff Morrell: I would imagine that when one is confined in the brig, it is not just for their protection that we are worried, we are also worried about our protection. He is charged with very serious crimes. That's why you isolate someone behind bars. That's why you confine someone so they cannot escape, cannot possibly commit the crimes that they are alleged to have done again. I think you have it a little backwards. I think you have it that he is being held for his own protection in the manner in which he is being held.

Wendy Carlisle: It was then raised that for two days last week, Bradley Manning had been placed on suicide watch. It was against medical advice. Bradley Manning had been stripped to his underwear and his glasses were removed.

The reporters wanted to know whether the brig commander had violated protocols in placing Bradley Manning on suicide watch against the advice of psychiatrists.

Geoff Morrell: What I've been told is that the brig commander is ultimately responsible for the wellbeing and confinement of everyone in his charge. And so he has the wherewithal to make decisions, based upon input from others, including doctors, about how it is best to treat people, given the current circumstances. He made a judgment call; it sounds like that he put him under suicide watch for a period of 2 days. But as I understand it he was well within his rights to do so as the Commander of the brig.

Reporter: Is it within his authority to put somebody on suicide watch for disciplinary purposes?

Geoff Morrell: Frankly, I'm not aware of all the regulations that he operates under, but I would imagine that as the brig commander he has extraordinary discretion in terms of how best to run that facility.

Reporter: Was Manning taken off suicide watch at the urging of army lawyers?

Geoff Morrell: I don't know.

Wendy Carlisle: It's the view of David House that the US government wants to prosecute Bradley Manning to discourage other whistleblowers.

David House: Well in the 2008 report from the army, they mention how Wikileaks has an organisational structure that is very hard to combat. In this report, they talk about the fact that Wikileaks in its distributing nature is able to receive documents from anywhere in the world and anonymise them. And because of this the US army report goes on to state 'Wikileaks constitutes a threat to the internal dealings of the US.' I think in my opinion I've reached in with the recent releases of the diplomatic cables and the recent releases of the Afghan-Iraq war logs, there's a lot of information coming out of Wikileaks that doesn't really harm US national security so much as it really embarrasses our political leaders in the United States. I think this is probably the motivation for a large part of why the US is coming down so hard on Wikileaks right now.

Wendy Carlisle: The first amendment of the US constitution guarantees the rights of freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

When the Supreme Court dismissed Nixon's attempt to prevent The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon papers, it did so because the court said it was not enough that the government was merely embarrassed by the disclosure.

The publication of secrets had to do much more than that. They had to present what's called a 'clear and present danger' to society. The court had to find a balance between the need for governments to have secrets and the need to protect democracy from governments that held secrets. It was a tricky balance. A central question in the operation of a free society. So they came up with an inelegant solution that seems to work.

And it's this: The press should be free to publish secrets as long as they do not present what's called 'a clear and present danger' and the government ought to be free to prosecute its employees who leaked.

From the University of Chicago, Professor Geoffrey Stone.

Geoffrey Stone: Well there has to be at the very least, a clear and imminent harm of a grave injury to the United States that is present. And that means that harm that follows from the publication, has to be not just a harm but a grave one, it has to be a harm that flows immediately from the publication and it has to be very probable that that particular harm would follow.

Wendy Carlisle: It's been reported that the strategy of the US government in pursuing Julian Assange is to indict him for conspiracy under the Espionage Act. That is, that he conspired with Bradley Manning to steal the diplomatic cables. Julian Assange has denied he's ever heard of Bradley Manning until he was arrested. And has no idea if he was the leaker. And to date, there has been no connection established beyond the claims of Adrian Lamo that Julian Assange knew Bradley Manning.

But even so, if a journalist provides a source with the means to hand over documents, as Wikileaks does with whistleblowers, does that make for conspiracy?

Professor Geoffrey Stone.

Geoffrey Stone: There are so many variations on the ways in which a journalist deals with sources, that to criminalise the whole range of activity by which journalists get information from sources, would open up a huge can of worms.

Wendy Carlisle: If Julian Assange is prosecuted by the US government, it will be the first time ever that this has happened.

Geoffrey Stone: It is without precedent. There has never been a case in the history of the United States in which a publisher and I would treat Assange as a publisher, has been prosecuted for the publication of classified information.

Wendy Carlisle: What about during the Pentagon papers, wasn't the -

Geoffrey Stone: There was no prosecution of them. The government tried to enjoin the further publication. So they went to court and tried to get a court order that would direct The New York Times and The Washington Post not to continue publishing the information. But after they lost that, they did not attempt criminally to prosecute The New York Times or The Washington Post.

Wendy Carlisle: So this would be without precedent?

Geoffrey Stone: This would be without precedent.

Wendy Carlisle: Background Briefing's Co-ordinating Producer is Linda McGinnis. Research, Anna Whitfeld. Technical operator, Mark Don. Our Executive Producer is Kirsten Garrett. The actor, Tyler Coppin performed the roles of Private Bradley Manning and Adrian Lamo.

And Background Briefing is now on Twitter @RNBBing

I'm Wendy Carlisle and you're on ABC Radio National.

*The transcript and audio of this story have been amended to correctly name some people who appear in this story.