Emily Bourke reported this story on Monday, February 14, 2011 08:12:00

TONY EASTLEY: While much of the WikiLeaks drama has been about its founder Julian Assange and the latest court action in London, the story behind the alleged source of the leaks has been almost forgotten.



The ABC's Four Corners has investigated the story of Bradley Manning - the US army analyst who allegedly stole the classified documents that were published by WikiLeaks.



He's been in a US military prison for eight months.



Emily Bourke compiled this report.



EMILY BOURKE: While Julian Assange remains very much in the spotlight, his expose of foreign policy cables would not have been possible without private Bradley Manning, the US army intelligence analyst who's alleged to have stolen the classified material that was later published.



Adrian Lamo is a former computer hacker who claims to have befriended the young private and he has revealed the contents of their online chats.



He says Manning openly confessed to being a source to WikiLeaks.



ADRIAN LAMO: For me, the precise moment at which I felt that what Bradley Manning was doing was a danger to national security and to the lives of others was when he characterised one of his leaks as being in excess of a quarter of a million state department documents.



EMILY BOURKE: Lamo alerted US authorities and Manning is now in custody.



He's charged with transferring information from military computers without authorisation. He could spend the next 50 years in prison.



To date, there is no evidence Assange directly helped or conspired with Manning to take the classified material.



Supporters of Manning say his prison conditions are designed to break the 23-year-old and force him to implicate Assange.



One of the few civilians Manning is allowed to see is David House.



DAVID HOUSE: From meeting with Bradley, from getting to know him and from watching his state degrade over time, the only conclusion I can reach is that this is torture.



EMILY BOURKE: The US administration declined interview requests from Four Corners but the Pentagon has previously said that private Manning is being treated in same way as any other inmate.



Four Corners has also discovered a fierce debate within WikiLeaks over whether it was in Manning's best interest to publish the cables.



As a former WikiLeaks insider Daniel Domscheit-Berg explains.



DANIEL DOMSCHEIT-BERG: If the cables had not been published, there would have been no proof that anyone had given the material to a different entity.



So from my perspective, whatever would've, should've happened with these cables, for the sake of Bradley Manning, would've been to just keep them back as long as possible until you find out what is happening with him before you publish them.



Because, I mean, that is just feeding allegations of spreading material to other entities and that might mean new charges that have not come up at this point in time.



QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Did Julian Assange agree with you?



DANIEL DOMSCHEIT-BERG: Obviously not.



EMILY BOURKE: For his part Julian Assange maintains WikiLeaks does not know the identity of its sources.



JULIAN ASSANGE: Because we don't know who our sources are, we cannot be in a position where upcoming publications can be affected by taking hostages. That is, would be a very dangerous precedent to set.



QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: But doesn't that mean that those hostages, those potential sources themselves become, if you'll forgive me, collateral damage?



JULIAN ASSANGE: Well I mean if a particular government wants to engage in abusive action, it engages in abusive action but we have a promise to our sources that we will publish.



EMILY BOURKE: Last Month WikiLeaks made a donation of $15,000 to Bradley Manning's legal defence.



TONY EASTLEY: Emily Bourke and you can see the full Four Corners story tonight at 8:30 on ABC 1.