WikiSecrets

Aired on PBS's Frontline, Marcela Gaviria and Martin Smith's documentary explores the unlikely alliance between Julian Assange, the flamboyantly self-promoting Australian editor/publisher of the WikiLeaks website, and Bradley Manning, a maladjusted U.S. Army soldier who has been accused of passing nearly 500,000 classified government files to Assange. WikiLeaks's publication of these documents not only shed new light on the U.S. military occupation of Iraq but also exposed serious security holes within the military (Manning was able to copy top secret documents to a disk without raising any warnings of unauthorized data transfers). Manning—who was not interviewed here, although his father does appear—is presented as a loose cannon; uncomfortable in the military culture, Manning flaunted the military's “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy by clearly stating his homosexuality on Facebook, and he confided his Assange connection to Adrian Lamo, a prominent hacker who alerted military authorities. Questioned on camera, Assange comes across as both reasonable and articulate, although business associates and newspaper editors have accused him of being imperious and insincere. WikiSecrets is destined to have a very limited shelf life, since Manning has yet to be brought to trial and Assange is facing his own high-profile legal battles. But it does provide a comprehensive (at this point) and objective overview of a complex controversy. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)