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I don't see the baloney. Believing a law is unjust is not the same thing as believing it doesn't exist. She never said she expects there to be no repercussions

I don't see the baloney. Believing a law is unjust is not the same thing as believing it doesn't exist. She never said she expects there to be no repercussions for refusing to testify. She said previously that she was aware that she is likely to go to jail over this, and accepted the consequences. As far as I'm aware, she never claimed she's exercising her 5th amendment rights. The ones she listed in her refusal to answer the questions were the 1st, 4th and 6th. I don't care to guess at the connection she sees there on any of those fronts, but I also haven't seen it explained, so maybe I'm missing something.

dragontamer 8y ago
> Believing a law is unjust is not the same thing as believing it doesn't exist. Yeah, and I'm of the opinion that the law is perfectly acceptable in this case. Its 100% acceptable to jail someone who refuses to testify in a criminal case, especially if they have information about that criminal case. If you know someone is a murderer and you have evidence for it... it is a CRIME to hide that evidence from the police. Period. That's how our society works. Yeah, people hate snitches. Snitches get stiches, don't be a snitch, etc. etc. But lets be frank, if it weren't for snitches, then the Police wouldn't have any evidence to work off of at all. So the government is 100% in their power to compel people to snitch on others. Both legally AND morally. -------------- The greater question is what is going on exactly. There is very little discussion around here about what this "Wikileaks" case is. That's probably the root of the story.
- stale2002 8y ago
  > someone who refuses to testify in a criminal case, This statement is false. Manning IS willing to testify though. Publicly. I am not sure why you are strawmaning here. I think there very much is a moral stand to make here. Society should not be run on secret courts. If the US government wants to accuse wikileaks of something, then let them do so publicly. Secret courts are a huge infringement on justice.
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    > Manning IS willing to testify though. Publicly. And that's utter baloney. Its confusing enough to be on a jury, to be pulled out of work and then forced to work on a case you kind of don't care about... while getting paid basically minimum wage to do it. Witnesses are gagged so that the overall discussion that happens in court will take place in an orderly manner. The prosecutor and the defendant will both have opportunities to ask questions and make their case to the jury. But under no circumstances is a witness allowed to inject their personal politics into a case. As such, they are gagged with respect to the information they tell. If the Prosecutor isn't willing to bring forward some pieces of data... and the defendant also doesn't want to bring it up in cross-examination, then there's really nothing else for the Witness to say. > I think there very much is a moral stand to make here. Society should not be run on secret courts. If the US government wants to accuse wikileaks of something, then let them do so publicly. The Trial will be public. But the discussion BEFORE the trial is secret. The prosecutors need to get their story straight before they make a public discussion. This is basic court stuff. The defendant gets an opportunity to see all the evidence before the trial. Both sides are sworn to secrecy to help the process move forward. Its a complete clusterFFFF if you get witnesses and whatever throwing pre-trial evidence to the media. ------------- This is an order to testify before a Grand Jury. Technically speaking: this means that the prosecutors haven't even proven that there's enough evidence to officially give a charge yet. The Grand Jury is called to provide the answer to the question: is there enough circumstantial evidence to begin an official trial? To leak information this early in the game would just be nasty, to both the prosecutors and the defendants.
    - stale2002 8y ago
      > This is basic court stuff No, it is not "standard procedure" for a country to have secret accusations against someone, for almost a decade, and to lie about it, and pretend like they don't, for all this time. This has been what has happened all along. The whole reason Assange is in the Embassy is because he says the US has secret accusations against him and extradition orders. The government said otherwise. Anti WikiLeaks people said otherwise. They said it was a crazy conspiracy theory. These people were wrong. These people were lying. And everyone got tricked, and those of us who did actually believe that the US had secret accusations against Assange, were right. We were proven correct, and it took almost a decade for this to come to light. And now, of all times, when the people who lied, pretended, or got tricked into not believing that the US had secret accusations against Assange just got 100% proven wrong, well now the narrative is "oh, it is perfectly normal to have secret accusations against someone for a decade! Nothing to see here!" No it not normal. The government makes public accusations against people all the time. They have arrest warrants, they have most wanted lists, they give their opinion on the law and who broke them all the time. This is normal, and it is a healthy part of the justice system to make their accusations public.
- thecrash 8y ago
  > Its 100% acceptable to jail someone who refuses to testify in a criminal case, especially if they have information about that criminal case. There is no criminal case. A prosecutor doesn't have to even bring charges to convene a Grand Jury. It's entirely possible that in 2 years, this entire Grand Jury (which will have kept Manning jailed the whole time) will conclude with "Welp, guess there's no basis for bringing charges against anybody. This whole thing was unfounded. Everyone go home." And the prosecutor will say "Oh well, at least I got to use the power of the courts to compel testimony from practically any witness about practically anything. We'll just use all that info for our next investigation."

dragontamer 8y ago

> Believing a law is unjust is not the same thing as believing it doesn't exist. Yeah, and I'm of the opinion that the law is perfectly acceptable in this case. Its 100% acceptable to jail someone who refuses to testify in a criminal case, especially if they have information about that criminal case. If you know someone is a murderer and you have evidence for it... it is a CRIME to hide that evidence from the police. Period. That's how our society works. Yeah, people hate snitches. Snitches get stiches, don't be a snitch, etc. etc. But lets be frank, if it weren't for snitches, then the Police wouldn't have any evidence to work off of at all. So the government is 100% in their power to compel people to snitch on others. Both legally AND morally. -------------- The greater question is what is going on exactly. There is very little discussion around here about what this "Wikileaks" case is. That's probably the root of the story.

stale2002 8y ago
> someone who refuses to testify in a criminal case, This statement is false. Manning IS willing to testify though. Publicly. I am not sure why you are strawmaning here. I think there very much is a moral stand to make here. Society should not be run on secret courts. If the US government wants to accuse wikileaks of something, then let them do so publicly. Secret courts are a huge infringement on justice.
- dragontamer 8y ago
  > Manning IS willing to testify though. Publicly. And that's utter baloney. Its confusing enough to be on a jury, to be pulled out of work and then forced to work on a case you kind of don't care about... while getting paid basically minimum wage to do it. Witnesses are gagged so that the overall discussion that happens in court will take place in an orderly manner. The prosecutor and the defendant will both have opportunities to ask questions and make their case to the jury. But under no circumstances is a witness allowed to inject their personal politics into a case. As such, they are gagged with respect to the information they tell. If the Prosecutor isn't willing to bring forward some pieces of data... and the defendant also doesn't want to bring it up in cross-examination, then there's really nothing else for the Witness to say. > I think there very much is a moral stand to make here. Society should not be run on secret courts. If the US government wants to accuse wikileaks of something, then let them do so publicly. The Trial will be public. But the discussion BEFORE the trial is secret. The prosecutors need to get their story straight before they make a public discussion. This is basic court stuff. The defendant gets an opportunity to see all the evidence before the trial. Both sides are sworn to secrecy to help the process move forward. Its a complete clusterFFFF if you get witnesses and whatever throwing pre-trial evidence to the media. ------------- This is an order to testify before a Grand Jury. Technically speaking: this means that the prosecutors haven't even proven that there's enough evidence to officially give a charge yet. The Grand Jury is called to provide the answer to the question: is there enough circumstantial evidence to begin an official trial? To leak information this early in the game would just be nasty, to both the prosecutors and the defendants.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    > This is basic court stuff No, it is not "standard procedure" for a country to have secret accusations against someone, for almost a decade, and to lie about it, and pretend like they don't, for all this time. This has been what has happened all along. The whole reason Assange is in the Embassy is because he says the US has secret accusations against him and extradition orders. The government said otherwise. Anti WikiLeaks people said otherwise. They said it was a crazy conspiracy theory. These people were wrong. These people were lying. And everyone got tricked, and those of us who did actually believe that the US had secret accusations against Assange, were right. We were proven correct, and it took almost a decade for this to come to light. And now, of all times, when the people who lied, pretended, or got tricked into not believing that the US had secret accusations against Assange just got 100% proven wrong, well now the narrative is "oh, it is perfectly normal to have secret accusations against someone for a decade! Nothing to see here!" No it not normal. The government makes public accusations against people all the time. They have arrest warrants, they have most wanted lists, they give their opinion on the law and who broke them all the time. This is normal, and it is a healthy part of the justice system to make their accusations public.
thecrash 8y ago
> Its 100% acceptable to jail someone who refuses to testify in a criminal case, especially if they have information about that criminal case. There is no criminal case. A prosecutor doesn't have to even bring charges to convene a Grand Jury. It's entirely possible that in 2 years, this entire Grand Jury (which will have kept Manning jailed the whole time) will conclude with "Welp, guess there's no basis for bringing charges against anybody. This whole thing was unfounded. Everyone go home." And the prosecutor will say "Oh well, at least I got to use the power of the courts to compel testimony from practically any witness about practically anything. We'll just use all that info for our next investigation."