Wired.com could not confirm whether Wikileaks received the supposed260,000 classified embassy dispatches. To date, a single classified diplomatic cable has appearedon the site: released last February, it describes a U.S. embassy meeting with the government of Iceland. E-mail and a voice mail message left for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on Sunday were not answered bythe time this article was published.

The State Department said it was not aware of the arrest or the allegedly leaked cables. The FBI was not prepared to comment when asked about Manning.

Army spokesman Gary Tallman was unaware of the investigation but said, “If you have a security clearance and wittingly or unwittingly provide classified info to anyone who doesn’t have security clearance ora need to know, you have violated security regulations and potentially the law.”

Manning’s arrest comes as Wikileaks has ratcheted up pressure against various governments over the years with embarrassing documents acquired through a global whistle blower network that is seemingly impervious to threats from adversaries. Its operations are hosted on servers in several countries, and it uses high-level encryption for its document submission process, providing secure anonymity for its sources and as afe haven from legal repercussions for itself. Since its launch in2006, it has never outed a source through its own actions, either voluntarily or involuntarily.