The American Civil Liberties Union announced on June 9th that it is suing the U.S. State Department to declassify files already released by Wikileaks. On April 12, the ACLU had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for 23 embassy cables that had been released by Wikileaks. The government refused to respond to the request, prompting the lawsuit. In the ACLU’s words, the State Department insists on “keeping classified a set of diplomatic cables describing the government’s efforts abroad to avoid attention or accountability over its actions connected to the “War on Terror.”

Another well-known accused whistleblower, Thomas Drake, has accepted a plea bargain that drops the charges in his indictment, absolves him of mishandling classified information and calls for no prison time. Drake and several former National Security Administration colleagues were concerned about what they saw as corruption in the NSA’s data collection programs that had been created by the Patriot Act. He says he first tried to raise these concerns through the “proper channels” and was ignored, so he turned to the media. This is a success for those involved in the Wikileaks case as well, because it gives an example of a case in which the current administration attempted ambitious use of the Espionage Act, and failed.

Bradley Manning Support Network Advisory Committee member Daniel Ellsberg has been giving a number of interviews corresponding with the 40th anniversary of the release of the Pentagon Papers, mentioning Bradley Manning when possible. In this interview, featured on CNN’s blog, he adds more historical context to both cases, including the assertion that “All the crimes Richard Nixon committed against me are now legal.”

A new Wikileaks support group has been created in Boston. This Wednesday they are having a protest against the grand jury subpoena of Bradley Manning supporter David House.