
Manning refusing to testify at grand jury probing WikiLeaks - tareqak
https://apnews.com/ecaa198a17db40cf9e83115c6e853315
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IfOnlyYouKnew
I don’t find “nothing more to offer” to be a good reason to refuse to
cooperate. When you’re called as a witness, you go and tell the truth, fully
and nothing but. Exceptions apply regarding self-incrimination, attorney-
client privileges, and a few others. But those are democratically agreed on.

I would agree that Manning got treated far too harshly, and the commutation
(pardon?) of her sentence by Obama is a rather high-level recognition of that
opinion. But of all the institutions we have, some of which seem somewhat
necessary for the continued functioning of society, the courts have held up
relatively well in these times of partisan breakdown of norms. And I say that
even though I have a list of verdicts I disagree with that is probably longer
than yours.

Please try to consider a case that is reversed from your political point of
view. Say a soldier who committed war crimes and, after serving their
sentence, refuses to testify against their partners. Would you still grant
them a right to refuse testimony?

~~~
inflatableDodo
>"Say a soldier who committed war crimes and, after serving his sentence,
refuses to testify against their partners. Would you still grant them a right
to refusal on these grounds?"

Other than asking them, there is no moral way to compel someone to testify if
they do not want to speak. Jailing them repeatedly one question at a time is
clearly abusive.

edit - this isn't difficult ethically. Unless you construct some imminent
scenario (puppy trapped down well, etc.), you are locking someone up purely to
know more. They aren't themselves depriving you directly of anything other
than their perspective on events.

~~~
prepend
Subpoena are considered moral, I think, because testimony is required for
democratic society so that we don’t rely on hearsay. There are many situations
where someone does not “want” to testify, but it is necessary to better
understand the truth.

If someone could just decline subpoenas then we would lost rule of law.

I think it’s worth pointing out that there are checks on judges issuing
subpoenas and it’s not done arbitrarily.

~~~
chj
Sorry I have to ask, what are the checks on judges? What if you change judge
every time?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _what are the checks on judges?_

Other judges. This is why appeals and petitions to higher courts exist.

~~~
megous
Worse problem for democracy is refusal of prosecutors to prosecute public
officials even in cases of obvious miscarriage of their duties to the public
(or lets say highly controversial acts with high casualty counts and
largescale damage on property of other people - like going to arrest 4 people
for parole violation and contempt of court,... and burning down the entire
neighbourhood and killing 11 people).

One egregious example is (today is the aniversary) 1985 bombing of MOVE:

[http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,141842,...](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,141842,00.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE)

What are the checks on refusal to prosecute? Are there even any? One might
find it more apppealing to cooperate with a justice system that at least tries
to do its job wrt people who police the public.

~~~
jfengel
All of the lawyers I've spoken to (liberal, conservative, and other) seem to
feel that it's a necessary evil to avoid exposing every public official to
constant harassment on every decision. That is, it's not perfect, and bad
things do happen, but rarely, and the alternatives to fix those rare cases are
worse.

I'm not entirely sure I buy that. It does sound an awful lot like collective
ass-covering. But I do try to take into account that prominent, widely-noted
failures do not necessarily invalidate a system that functions reasonably well
most days.

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thatoneuser
Man the propaganda machine is out in full force on this one. A couple people
uncover war and humanitarian crimes all over the world and they're the only
ones to be punished. Nearly a decade later and the witch hunt is strong, yet
what came of the people who committed the real crimes?

~~~
_trampeltier
History is written by the victors.

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jessaustin
Wow it's great that war crimes go unpunished while journalism revealing those
war crimes is punished harshly. That's the way to run a totalitarian
murderdeath machine!

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mothsonasloth
It's interesting how all these events have precipitated over the past month.

* Ecuador ends Assange's asylum

* British police raid the Ecuadorian embassy and seize Assange

* Assange is held in prison

* US begin extradition papers

* Swedish rape trial is revived

* Grand jury opened into Wikileaks

It just shows you how the machine of bureaucracy can move fast nationally and
internationally when there is blood in the water.

~~~
mieseratte
Considering they've had the better part of a decade to prepare, I'd hope
they'd be prepared to most fast one the first domino fell.

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boomboomsubban
I wish the article detailed what the classified documents she leaked were. Too
many people are pushing for a war with Iran recently, a reminder of the
devastation we caused in Iraq would be useful.

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roenxi
Something here is obviously being misreported, or Manning is crazy.

Why not go to the jury, repeat previous statements, answer any question she's
comfortable with and go with the tried-and-tested "I don't recall" for
everything else? Or plead self incrimination if there is a risk?

This must have occurred to everyone involved. There isn't any reason to go to
risk jail rather than answer a few questions.

~~~
levosmetalo
Maybe because she her goal is not come up with the least damage to herself,
but to do what she finds more moral and right.

Heroes don't play dumb, heroes do the right thing, make a statement, send the
message ... and she is a hero, not someone trying to cover her ass.

On the other hand, whatever she do, she's screwed, her future in such legal
and power system is not bright anyways. So why not trying to be "die as a
hero" then, it's not likely she would "survive" without "selling out" anyways?

~~~
roenxi
There isn't anything heroic about not communicating. Heroism is refusing to
communicate _dishonestly_.

~~~
cyphar
The grand jury is an attempt to get something out of her which will sway a
jury to decide that Assange is not a journalist and is guilty of conspiracy to
commit computer fraud.

She's decided to not play that game. To not serve as an accomplice in the US
Government's case against Assange.

I don't know why you think there's nothing heroic about remaining silent under
intense government intimidation. You can come up with a counterexample very
trivially -- in the civil rights movement, if you had witnessed a black person
going into a "whites-only" bathroom then it would've been far more courageous
to refuse to act as a witness than it would be to tell the truth.

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lucd
She is refusing to testfify because "she has nothing more to offer".. Totally
legit.

~~~
weego
Absolutely but the old boys club plays it a different way. Give them the
spectacle of the grand jury but answer every question with "please refer to my
previous testimony"

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kevingadd
Seems likely their goal is to manufacture new charges to pin on her via
deception or other means of tricking her into committing perjury during
testimony (something people frequently get away with, especially if it's not
clear-cut, but she would not)

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GVIrish
She was offered immunity to testify so even if she reveals something
incriminating it wouldn't be admissible as evidence against her.

Furthermore, she already has the right not to self-incriminate. So if a
question came her way that would require her to implicate herself in a crime,
she could plead the 5th.

Manning really isn't in any legal jeopardy here, except for refusing to
testify. She has a personal objection to testifying, which is her right, but
the remedy to that is being held in contempt until she changes her mind or the
grand jury concludes.

~~~
tgragnato
Sometimes you have to play by the rules, bending them to your own needs.

I agree with her points, but she's stubborn. I highly doubt that any judge
could understand the reasons of her behaviour: if you spend most of your work
time slavishly applying laws, regulations, .. legislated by someone else, it's
not in your mindset.

It would be really much more simple an pragmatic to give them the spectacle of
the grand jury. She could even answer with something such as "I need to follow
back after consulting with my lawyers".

