Pfc. Bradley Manning, a US soldier accused of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks, is to be arraigned today at Fort Meade, Maryland. Manning will be given “official notice of the charges,” according to his defense lawyer, David Coombs. He will then be asked to enter a plea.

On Coombs’ Army Court Martial Defense blog, Coombs writes, “This is the first step in the court-martial process.” It is scheduled to begin at 1 pm EST this afternoon.

The New York Times’ Bill Keller has renewed his feud with Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks. In his latest column, Keller attempts to set the record straight on the leaks organization, but his efforts seems a petulant attack that fails to establish the charges he lays at WikiLeaks feet.

The Fresh Juice Party, a group that describes itself as “a politically progressive media group” that writes, records and performs music, designs visuals and creates happenings, is holding a conference in support of whistleblowers and whistleblowing at UC Berkeley this weekend. The conference called, “Occupy the Truth: Whistleblowers Conference,” will intentionally bring together information activists that support transparency and members of the Occupy movement from Occupy Oakland and other parts of California. It will happen February 17-19.

The conference is attracting a bit of attention, especially among WikiLeaks supporters on Twitter, after WikiLeaks released a statement claiming that UNESCO had not invited anyone from the organization to speak at the conference. In the statement, WikiLeaks called for people to #OccupyUNESCO because they were “stacking” the conference with “WikiLeaks opponents.”

The media organization WikiLeaks reports a conference to be held at the headquarters of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris has not invited any speakers affiliated with WikiLeaks to speak at the event that is scheduled to take place February 16 and 17 — and the major topic is about the impact of WikiLeaks.

An Iraq war veteran, who is the focus of one of the short documentaries nominated for an Academy Award, is receiving death threats for providing his individual account of what happened during an incident that has come to be known as the “Collateral Murder” incident.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition appeal hearing is in the final hours of its second day. Claire Montgomery QC has been making the argument for Sweden in defense of Assange’s extradition. Yesterday, Dinah Rose QC made the argument in support of the appeal.

Pfc Bradley Manning will likely face court martial – and if we don’t act now, he could be tried on charges that he ‘aided the enemy.’ That would threaten the foundation of investigative journalism, e.g., by criminalizing the publication of intelligence information. We’re calling the Department of Defense to demand they drop the “aiding the enemy” against Manning.

The charges against Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, are likely to proceed onto a court martial.

The investigative officer, Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, who presided over the Article 32 hearing in December, recommended all twenty-three charges, including the charge of “aiding the enemy,” which rests upon the government’s assertion that Manning knowingly provided intelligence to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda through WikiLeaks.

The Internet censorship bills, SOPA and PIPA, bouncing around Congress don’t really work unless you apply them globally. If other countries do not vigorously protect their entertainment and high-tech industry’s copyrights in the same way as the United States, those industries will lose market share domestically. So the US has taken to pressuring other countries to pass anti-piracy laws through their legislatures. And this pressure rose to the level of threats, we have now learned from leaked letters.