Military officials at the brig where accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning is imprisoned prevented a long-time visitor from seeing the soldier after discovering that the car he was driving had expired registration tags.

Authorities detained David House (above), a friend of Manning's, for nearly two hours while they repeatedly examined his ID and other documents. They refused to allow him to proceed onto the Quantico, Virginia, base where the brig is located when House and his passenger could not produce proof of insurance for the car. Although House offered to drive the vehicle off the base, the guards refused, according to Jane Hamsher, founder of the Firedoglake blog who owns the car and was a passenger in it during the encounter.

Instead, Hamsher told Threat Level, the guards called a tow truck to remove the car, and then made her and House wait with the driver for 45 minutes before allowing them to leave the base. She said the guards kept asking to see documents they'd already seen and ignored House's concerns that visiting hours would soon expire.

They had arrived at the base between 1 and 1:30 p.m., and by the time the guards had released them, it was 2:50 p.m. The guards told House he could return to visit Manning after the car had been towed to a garage, but visiting hours ended at 3 p.m. The two of them were left with a $150 tow-truck bill and a summons to appear at a later date at a district court in Alexandria, Virginia, to provide proof of insurance and registration.

Last November, House was detained at Chicago's O'Hare Airport by U.S. customs agents on his way back to the country from a Mexico vacation.

The agents searched his bags and questioned him for 90 minutes about his relationship to 23-year-old Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst accused of leaking classified documents to the secret-spilling site WikiLeaks. The agents confiscated a laptop computer, a thumb drive and a digital camera from House and reportedly demanded, but did not receive, his encryption keys.

Hamsher said she had accompanied House on two prior trips to visit Manning at the U.S. Marine Corps' Quantico brig, and they had never encountered problems. House is on a visitor's list for Manning, but Hamsher is not. Manning is not allowed to receive visits from the press.

She said that during previous visits, she was allowed to wait at a base McDonald's while House met with Manning. She believed their treatment this time resulted from public statements House recently made about Manning's living conditions at the brig.

"I think it has to do with that fact that David was the person who spoke out that Bradley was being mistreated on the base," she said. "So for whatever reason, they didn’t want David to get there."

House wrote in a blog post last month on Firedoglake that Manning's treatment was "inhumane." He described severe restrictions on Manning's ability to exercise, communicate and sleep.

"In his five months of detention, it has become obvious to me that Manning’s physical and mental well-being are deteriorating," House wrote.

Last week, Manning's attorney David E. Coombs filed a formal complaint after the brig commander abruptly placed Manning on suicide watch.

The suicide watch added more restrictions to Manning's confinement. He was confined to his cell around the clock, while a guard sat outside watching him. He was also stripped to his underwear, and his prescription eyeglasses were taken from him except during the one hour he was permitted to watch television and when he was permitted to read. The suicide watch was lifted the day after Coombs filed his complaint.

Military officials told NBC Monday that the brig commander had crossed a line when he put Manning on suicide watch. The sources said that only medical personnel were allowed to make such a determination and that Manning had been placed on the watch after he had failed to follow orders from his Marine guards.

Hamsher believes the brig thwarted House's visit on Sunday as a way to punish Manning and keep him isolated. House, she says, has been Manning's only visitor for the last five months, other than his attorney and an initial visit from an aunt.

Brig spokesman 1st Lt. Brian Villiard said the guards had been following proper procedure when they refused to allow the car to proceed onto the base.

"When that vehicle showed up and they asked for ID, the MPs that worked at the gate also noticed that the license plates were expired," he said, "and at that point, it just became a routine traffic stop."

Villiard said it's against state law for vehicles without current registration or valid insurance to be driven on Virginia roads.

"Because the vehicle was on the base, we have an obligation to uphold Virginia law on the facility," he said, and therefore House was not allowed to drive the vehicle off the base. "If their paperwork for the registration had been fine, [then] it wouldn’t have been an issue."

He said that House was not allowed to visit Manning while Hamsher dealt with the car issues because procedures dictate that anyone in a vehicle that is stopped has to remain with the car.

"If I were a passenger in a vehicle wearing my uniform, I would still be held until the vehicle was towed off base," he said.

Hamsher told Threat Level that the registration for her car has been paid, but she's waiting for the stickers to come from California. She also said she has insurance and told the guards she could download a certificate from her insurer's website to prove it, but the guards refused to accept a digital copy, saying it could be altered.

Photo: Image of David House /YouTube*

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