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Chelsea Manning Jailed For Refusing To Testify On WikiLeaks (apnews.com)

The Associated Press is reporting that Chelsea Manning, the transgender former Army private who was convicted of passing sensitive government documents to WikiLeaks, "has been sentenced to jail for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating Wikileaks." From the report: U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton ordered Manning to jail for contempt of court on Friday after a brief hearing in which Manning confirmed she has no intention of testifying. She told the judge she "will accept whatever you bring upon me." Manning has said she objects to the secrecy of the grand jury process, and that she already revealed everything she knows at her court martial. The judge said she will remain jailed until she testifies or until the grand jury concludes its work. Manning's lawyers had asked that she be sent to home confinement instead of the jail, because of medical complications she faces. The judge said U.S. marshals can handle her medical care. Prosecutor Tracy McCormick said the jail and the marshals have assured the government that her medical needs can be met.

19 of 461 comments (clear)

  1. Wikileaks investigation shows true face of gvt by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think it's very telling that both under a strident Democratic administration, and now a Republican one, that the investigation and hatred for Wikileaks is exactly the same. This is why I often maintain there is really very little difference between the two parties...

    I do feel sorry for Manning though, sending her to jail and not even letting her be confined to home is bullshit. As Wikileaks has said on Twitter, this is simply an effort to coerce Manning to testify. I think it's sad they can get away with this.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Wikileaks investigation shows true face of gvt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      > As Wikileaks has said on Twitter, this is simply an effort to coerce Manning to testify.

      I suggest you brush up on your basic civics because, yes, that's exactly the point of being held in contempt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_court). This is not because she's affiliated with Wikileaks; this is not because she leaked classified information. This is specifically because she has been subpoenaed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpoena) meaning her testimony is NOT optional. This is in no way an unusual or unfair outcome of refusing to testify and she is not being singled out. If you are subpoenaed by a grand jury and refuse to testify, you get thrown in jail until you cooperate. Doesn't matter who you are.

      Wikileaks saying that on Twitter like they're somehow making a revelation or leveling an accusation is extremely stupid attention seeking behavior as is pretty much standard operating procedure for them.

    2. Re:Wikileaks investigation shows true face of gvt by ageoffri · · Score: 4, Informative

      You do know that it is an effort to force Manning to testify? It is a legal option that judges have and is used every day to compel someone like him.

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      -- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
  2. Re:Not so good by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    She is a Traitor to the country. This isn't because of any party loyalty. These were classified documents which she was working on as a member of the military. She chose to be in the military, and work in an area that had such access. This is different then Snowden who was a civilian consultant and wasn't given a way to report illegal actives. Or Assange who isn't an American Citizen.

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    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  3. Re:Is there a lawyer in the house? by Nidi62 · · Score: 3, Informative

    So why is she refusing to talk to the Grand Jury?

    Could be a desire not to endanger people Manning may have worked with or contacted within Wikileaks or even within the military. And of course, from the summary: "Manning has said she objects to the secrecy of the grand jury process, and that she already revealed everything she knows at her court martial."

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  4. It's a lot more than one point by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They diverge in some regards but it pretty much any way that matters, both sides look out for power in DC.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  5. Re:Not so good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Technically any German that sent classified documents to the Allies would be a Traitor. What's more important, loyalty or morals?

    I don't really care for Manning but history will look fondly on this.

  6. Re:Is there a lawyer in the house? by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Pardon invalidates a conviction (it's preemptively in-hand). A pardon does not apply some blanket immutable legal change of status.

    Manning didn't get pardoned, her sentence got commuted. So she is still technically considered guilty of her crimes.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  7. Re:Is there a lawyer in the house? by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can always take the fifth. It's a right, regardless of other process. Pardon invalidates a conviction (it's preemptively in-hand). A pardon does not apply some blanket immutable legal change of status.

    No, that's not true. There are some caveats, but generally if the government guarantees that you cannot self-incriminate (either via a pardon or a plea agreement) then you may be compelled to testify.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  8. Re: Oh look, another faggot in the limelight by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Genocide? Of whom? And the video Manning leaked was deliberately misrepresented by Assange to boost his own ego, as others in WikiLeaks have stated.

    What's particularly bad about this is Manning was leaking information with the specific intent to cause harm to the Army, (possibly leading to the deaths of US soldiers) without being aware of its contents at all. Manning did this purely out of spite; it had nothing to do with whistleblowing. The reason he did this goes back to his early days in the Army. Read on:

    https://huwieler.net/2017/01/1...

    Nothing would make Manning more happy than to see his comrades die simply because he was deliberately an asshole in basic. As an Army veteran myself, I have zero sympathy for that stupid fuck.

  9. Re:Not so good by Dasher42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    She is a Traitor to the country. This isn't because of any party loyalty. These were classified documents which she was working on as a member of the military. She chose to be in the military, and work in an area that had such access. This is different then Snowden who was a civilian consultant and wasn't given a way to report illegal actives. Or Assange who isn't an American Citizen.

    Yes, and the Holocaust was both legal and mostly secret too. Your rhetoric discards all morality in favor of laws that corrupt people wrote to give their blood-soaked oil war cover. Every organized atrocity happens because someone carried out orders. You're hounding for people to just do as their told, no matter how blatantly evil it is.

    The Iraq war murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, displaced over a million, and created gulags where torture and rape were carried out in malice by American soldiers against those rounded up indiscriminately in an occupied country. The American people were broadly deceived about the cause of the Iraq War, as they have been for many previous wars waged on behalf of rich people's interest abroad, and our soldiers in particular were lied to about what they put their lives on the line for.

    That is morally treasonous, and anyone who disobeyed an order from an official to restore basic human rights is a hero.

    I will not hear of traitor from you sadistic authoritarian psychopaths. You're a traitor to humanity regardless of borders. Full stop.

  10. Re: Not so good by Nidi62 · · Score: 5, Informative

    She was pardoned by Obama. This is Trump/Republicans trying to go barround it. Most likely denied questioning to protect herself.

    Her sentence was commuted. Obama specifically said he wasn't pardening her, he felt that her sentence was out of proportion to what others had received. He didn't even commute the whole sentence.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  11. Re:Nazi state 2.0 by TigerPlish · · Score: 3, Insightful

    he US is in the same category ad China, Russia or Nazi Germany.

    You're delusional. I suggest you talk to people who lived under the nazi flag. Talk to those who first-hand fought the fights, flew the raids, occupied Germany at the end. I suggest you educate yourself on what WWII Germany was doing, how they did it, and the sheer scale of what was done. Every country has blood on its hand, but WWII Germany was something else. Russia, too. Stalin offed twice as many Russians -- his own people -- than what Hitler did to the Jews and others Not Like Him.

    We're not running a machine of death where we feed body upon body by the thousands into the furnaces. No, we just knock over dictators to put another dictator in, one friendly to our interests.

    All we have here is a few minor inconveniences. For fuck's sake we can still buy guns with relative ease. And drugs. And cars, bikes, etc etc. We're a fucking paradise, my commie-pinko friend, even when compared to places in the Carribean.

    I will fight people like you in the voting booths, now and until I die. You cannot be allowed to win. You have your right to say it, but we have the right to vote your people into oblivion.

    And who the fuck modded you +1 anyway? Your post smacks of arrogant ignorance!

    --
    The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
  12. She is not a traitor to the country by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    not even in the legal sense. Traitor has a very, very specific legal meaning. It means treason, and good luck proving that. It's got the highest bar for anything in our legal system (and for damn good reason).

    In the metaphorical sense she's anything but a traitor. She did what she felt was right to expose horrible things being done in my name and yours. Things done to protect the interests of the ultra-wealthy and powerful at the expense of everyday working Americans.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  13. Re:Not so good by terrycarlino · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From a legal standpoint Hitler was duly elected and became the dictator of Germany via legal means. He then instituted an immoral but totally legal program of attempted genocide of a whole people.

    Moral and legal are often not only the same thing but contrary.

    However, as everyone from Emerson to King understood, being morally right does not provide legal protect from the consequences of your actions. So when you act on your morality be ready to accept the consequences. The concept that you should not have to accept the consequences of your actions just because you are doing the right thing is a particularly modern notion and unrealistic in the extreme.

  14. Re:Not so good by quenda · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not a She. His XY Chromosomes says he's a male. That is how science classifies him.

    Actually not quite. Classification is based on external appearance at birth, which is determined by the effect of androgens during pregnancy.
    Even if a baby is known to be XY, phenotype trumps genotype.

    Though somehow nowadays, we have people denying any biological basis to gender differences, and claiming things like occupation preference and aggression are purely cultural. So the logical conclusion is that you can be whatever sex you want.
        This makes perfect sense if you believe sex is a social construct :-)

    S/He could call themselves the Queen of England

    NOT the same. Gender self-identification, unlike say racial or political identity, has a genuine, well-documented biological basis. Gender dysphoria in young children is a real thing, but usually resolves itself. In some cases it does not, and many people feel the best path is to live as the other sex.

  15. Re: Not so good by astrofurter · · Score: 3, Informative

    The "two party system" is better described as "one party, two faces".

  16. Re: Not so good by Joce640k · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While you're there you could comment on the US prison system.

    I don't mean the sheer number of people in there, I mean the way that it's a place for institutionalized rape and that most Americans seem to be perfectly OK with that.

    The two things (Abu Ghraib and federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison) seem related to me. The idea that there's whole classes/races of people who somehow "deserve" to be tortured, abused and shot at seems to be prevalent in the USA.

    --
    No sig today...
  17. Re: Not so good by walllaby · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I had hoped we were living in a society that could recognize the difference and be BETTER about how we treat those that buck the system for a greater cause. Silly me.