Army Sued Over Lack of Access to Bradley Manning Trial

Trial of the private accused of passing information to Wikileaks begins next month

A long-anticipated fight over public access to the court-martial of WikiLeaker Pfc. Bradley Manning has come to Federal Court, a week and a half before his trial is set to begin.

The Center for Constitutional Rights sued the judge presiding over Manning's trial, Col. Denise Lind; the convening authority, Maj. Gen. Michael Linnington; Judge Advocate General Lt. Gen. Dana Chipman; Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel; and two JAG officers, in Baltimore Federal Court.

That court is less than an hour away from the military base in Ft. Meade, Md., where pretrial hearings in Manning's court-martial have been proceeding since December 2011.