I feel like this is something people have to consciously practice and remind themselves of.

I work for a civil liberties organization. Yet a few years ago two patrol officers in a train station in New York managed to interrogate me using a classic "good cop, bad cop" method -- about photographs that I was taking. I felt especially weird about this afterward because I had been reading news articles about people's legal right to take photographs in public places.

Apparently, my theoretical desire to assert my rights in an interaction with law enforcement somehow wasn't borne out in practice, and their interrogation methods are incredibly effective.

One thing I found striking when looking briefly at the linked transcript of the interview with Reality Winner is her concern for her pets. Making sure that her pets are properly taken care of is something that she needs from the agents and that's outside of her control in this situation. They don't explicitly bargain about this, but it seems like it's one big reason that she wants them to see her as cooperative.

What she leaked didn't hurt the deep state or the plutocracy, nor did it help the people. She is either hopelessly naive in all of her actions, or controlled. Probably the former.

When you are in this situation fine, sat at your desk, relaxed.

If I pretend to be your friend make you feel amazing then crank up the pressure before you realise what’s going on you’re being quizzed at a pace by someone who doesn’t even give you time to breath and starts making threats about your future well-being. Sure, you might forget the lawyer the first time this happens.

Those doing the questioning try hard to blend the line between "we're just talking" and you needing a lawyer. The truth is, you need a lawyer precisely because you're "just talking."

We've also been conditioned to believe that retaining and using a lawyer should be conflated with guilt.

I don't exactly have an attorney on retainer or a generous "legal expenses" cost center.

Because you will be afraid that if you don't comply they will treat you badly and maybe even take you to jail. You can see in the interview of RW that the FBI agents make it seem like they are just there to find out what happened and they say several times that they think she just made a mistake. They are doing that in order to get her to see them as allies in the search for the truth and to minimize the gravity of the situation. So, in a case like this she would probably be sitting there thinking "yeah it was a mistake I didn't want to do that at all I can't believe I made a mistake like that" which makes it all but impossible for her to halt the interview and request an attorney. In order to have asked for legal representation she would have had to see the gravity of the situation, which the FBI agents downplayed over and over as a trick.