> On the surface, these claims are as implausible as a fifth amendment claim would be This was also my reaction, and I'm pretty curious if/how they'll be used.

> On the surface, these claims are as implausible as a fifth amendment claim would be This was also my reaction, and I'm pretty curious if/how they'll be used. I presume the reason for citing all three Amendments was just to preserve options for a subsequent defense; you can't invent a new basis for your refusal at the contempt hearing. I see maybe two paths for the First Amendment invocation. It could be a right to privacy argument via freedom of assembly, since NAACP v. Alabama overturned contempt for failure to provide information about members of ideological organizations. That seems coherent, but not at all likely to work; Alabama was bringing suit against the NAACP and the court held that reveal of member roles would produce clear harm to the members. Or it could be a compelled speech argument, but that would be kind of dumb since it could cover any testimony at all. Testimony isn't an expression of belief, so the closest precedent is probably compelling companies to make "purely factual" statements, which is legal. (A press-shield argument would fit nicely, except that we don't actually have that right.) For the Fourth, I have basically nothing. Maybe some argument that demanding factual speech about a person's actions is comparable to a digital search like a wiretap? But there's a subpoena here, and subpoenas to gather current 'records' about past events work fine, so I really have no clue. The Sixth is fascinating, and I'm guessing it hinges on the Manning's opposition to a closed hearing. It's incredibly hard to close even hearings where judgement won't be issued, rather than merely closing specific segments, and giving someone a choice between private testimony and prison looks sort of like a de facto private trial. I'm pretty sympathetic, but I can't imagine it will stick; grand jury hearings are regularly private, and if that's not enough classified information rationales usually work. Does anyone else have a better guess at why they picked those three amendments?