The award is judged by a group of retired senior US military and intelligence personnel, and past winners. This year the award to Julian Assange was unanimous.

Previous winners and ceremony locations:

Coleen Rowley of the FBI; in Washington, D.C.

Katharine Gun of British intelligence; in Copenhagen, Denmark

Sibel Edmonds of the FBI; in Washington, D.C.

Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan; in New York City

Sam Provance, former sergeant, U.S. Army, truth-teller about Abu Ghraib; in Washington, D.C.

Frank Grevil, major, Danish army intelligence, imprisoned for giving the Danish press documents showing that Denmark’s prime minister disregarded warnings that there was no authentic evidence of WMDs in Iraq; in Copenhagen, Denmark

Larry Wilkerson, colonel, U.S. Army (retired), former chief of staff to Secretary Colin Powell at the State Department, who has exposed what he called the “Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal”; in Washington, D.C.

http://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2010/08/15/can-wikileaks-help-save-lives/

Not sure yet where this year’s award ceremony will be held, but I’ll be there.