Pfc. Bradley Manning’s Article 32 hearing, also being referred to as his pre-trial hearing, will begin on December 16 at Ft. Meade, Maryland. The hearing could potentially last until Friday, December 23.

An Article 32 hearing, according to the Defense Department, is “closely akin to the civilian grand jury investigation.” When the hearing closes, the “Article 32 officer” will make “a recommendation” on “the disposition of the charges.” Or, as David Dishneau of AP clearly and concisely puts it, “The proceeding is to determine whether the Army intelligence analyst will be court-martialed for allegedly leaking government secrets.”

Daniel Domscheit-Berg (DDB), founder of OpenLeaks who defected from the media organization WikiLeaks last year, has apparently destroyed a cache of documents he stole from WikiLeaks when he left the organization. According to reporter Holger Stark of the German news organization Der Spiegel, Domscheit-Berg told Stark some time on August 20 that the cache was gone forever.

Girls and women migrate into the Bosnia sex industry because of lack of opportunity and poor economic conditions. Generally coming from Eastern European countries, they answer ads and are promised good job only to find they become property of traffickers. They are moved across borders on routes that avoid official border crossings, all to disorient the girls and women who are likely to attempt escape. The girls and women are sometimes forced to strip naked before their “buyer” and are sold like slaves to men.

In a Los Angeles Times op-ed published today, J. William Leonard, who worked for five years as the director of the Information Security Oversight Information Office when George W. Bush was president, calls on the Obama administration to sanction “those who inappropriately classify information, and it needs to take far greater care in what it decides to label secret.”

A federal court has rejected former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s attempt to have a lawsuit dismissed that alleges he is responsible for authorizing the torture of two military contractors. The case, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel v. Donald Rumsfeld, et al is one of two cases out of more than a dozen that allege Rumsfeld allowed torture to take place against US citizens in Iraq.

The dismissal means Rumsfeld has now lost two appeals against torture suits filed against him. Last week, a federal court in Washington, DC, released an opinion that upheld the other lawsuit moving forward against Rumsfeld, John Doe v. Donald Rumsfeld, et al, a case that alleges the former defense secretary had a role in the torture and illegal detention of a US citizen that was working in Iraq as a translator.

This blog has been alive and kicking for two weeks now. At the end of every week, FDL’s The Dissenter will take a brief look back at what was covered during the week for anyone that missed out.

More than a thousand government organizations and nearly two thousand private companies currently work counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence programs. Well over two million Defense Department civilian, military and contractor personnel hold confidential, secret and top secret level security clearances. At the same time, the US government engages in a gross amount of classification of information, significantly limiting what citizens are allowed to know about the operations of government and effectively shielding routine abuses of power from scrutiny and outrage.

The Bradley Manning Support Network has put together a call-in day for those who wish to show their support for the accused whistleblower to WikiLeaks, Pfc. Bradley Manning. The Manning Support Network, an international grassroots organization that for months now has been organizing in support and for the legal defense of Manning, is urging supporters to call President Obama at the White House and also call the Secretary of the Army John McHugh.

Former Secretary of Education and CNN contributor William Bennett joins the ranks of those seeking to deflect attention away from the News Corp phone hacking scandal by comparing the scandal to WikiLeaks. He also joins a cadre of people, who are using the scandal to whip up hysteria about the “unethical” conduct of the press in America when it comes to coverage of national security matters.

A Freedom of Information Act request for documents on accused whistleblower to WikiLeaks Pfc. Bradley Manning’s treatment at Quantico Marine brig, filed by POLITICO, reveals that on multiple occasions Manning was recommended for removal from “prevention of injury” (POI) status by psychiatrists and psychologists but was not removed.