Manning hasn't really been jailed forever. She had her sentence commuted, and the recent legal trouble she finds herself in is entirely of her own creation, no?

IMO both Manning and Snowden have the weakest legal arguments, and Assange the strongest. I would personally have advised him to avoid taking sides in US politics, but he wasn't asking my opinion :). Playing in the big pond as a small fish is a dangerous game.

> recent legal trouble she finds herself in is entirely of her own creation, no?

Only in a sense of "Stop hitting yourself!".

Admittedly I'm not keeping close tabs on the case, but isn't the issue contempt of court? Could she stop the legal trouble by agreeing to testify?

"We don't say you commited any crime but either you speak or we'll hold you jailed indefinitely."

That doesn't sound like a first world democratic country. Yet it is.

On the contrary, it's perfectly normal in much of the first world. You are required to testify and jailed in contempt if you don't. The 5th is a US peculiarity.

Jailed indefinitely?

In my country it's 30 days tops. Not sure if you can be sentenced more than once for the same thing.

Also you can refuse to answer any question that might incriminate you, your family or your loved one without any punishment.

Yes, that's how contempt of court tends to work: you are jailed until you do the thing the court demands.

I believe it's to testify against Assange, which she has decided not to do as Assange's case is a legal grey area to say the least.

I wouldn't say it's Manning's choice so much as a 'testify if you want to get out' Hobson's choice.

>Can't really blame Snowden for staying in one place after the US canceled his passport mid-air.

ftfy

> Manning jailed forever

No, just until she either testifies as legally required or the term of the grand jury expires.

> Manning jailed forever.

in case you missed it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/politics/obama-commute...

> in case you missed it:

In case you missed it, she's currently in jail. [0] [1]

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/08/chelsea-mann...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/16/chelsea-mann...

She's in jail for refusing to testify to a grand jury. This is not directly part of the leak.

This is related to the leak. She won't testify to the details of how Assange helped her.

Unless I'm missing something, that means her continued incarceration is by her own choice.

"We don't say you commited any crime but either you speak or we'll hold you jailed indefinitely."

That doesn't sound like a first world democratic country. Yet it is.

I'm not sure why you seem to think so. The government does have the ability to force people to testify - just so long as it doesn't force people to incriminate themselves with that testimony. Just like how you get imprisoned for skipping jury duty, you can get held in contempt of court for refusing to testify to a grand jury.

Yes, refusing to testify to the grand jury... in the WikiLeaks case.

She was released when the last grand jury ran out of time. A new grand jury was called, she refused to appear before it and was put back in jail. Presumably there’s an upper limit on how long she can be in jail (this grand jury also has a time limit, plus once Assange’s trial gets far enough along, there won’t be any point to demand that she appear before the grand jury).

> Presumably there’s an upper limit on how long she can be in jail (this grand jury also has a time limit, plus once Assange’s trial gets far enough along, there won’t be any point to demand that she appear before the grand jury).

That's the limit on civil contempt, but there's no reason she couldn't then be charged with criminal contempt and imprisoned for that.