For being unwilling to testify against a journalist it's worth pointing out.
This is someone who thinks the system is trying to protect itself, and they would like to expose that at all costs.
to use 2019 parlance, it seems really "on-brand".
This is all very cut and dried. whoever her lawyer is is doing her a huge disservice. She has immunity and a subpoena. That means she's going to testify whether she likes it or not.
And she very well may never testify. She need only wait out the grand jury; and since she had expirience in prisin before making this choice, it seems entirely possible that she will out wait them.
This is just blatant bigotry and has no place in Hacker News.
Calling it out as "blatant bigotry" feels far more intolerant. People aren't either total saints or total bigots.
A slip of the tongue does not equate to intolerance IMO. Not everyone adjusts as quickly and easily as one might desire or expect.
I agree that a single misgendering is far from enough to label someone a bigot, and isn't enough to even conclusively be described as bigotry.
Which, it's worth pointing out, Manning has also said that she's willing to testify, but only by light of day, not behind closed doors.
That's not why it's secret: it's not a case-by-case, sensitivity-based decision. Criminal grand jury proceedings are secret, period. This protects suspects, it protects witnesses, it protects the integrity of law enforcement investigations, it protects third parties who might be mentioned in evidence and testimony. This is a long-standing rule that applies to all criminal grand jury proceedings.
That's supposed to be secret in grand jury proceedings; the only thing that is supposed to become clear is what (if any) charges they are indicted for as a result.
> it's reasonable to wonder why the prosecutors have worked so hard at avoiding any exposure to the best disinfectant.
Because they are required (both by the law around grand jury process and long-standing administrative policy to protect all of the reputations of people who aren't charged, the fairness of process for those who are charged, and the integrity of law enforcement and any other related investigations that might overlap with the present one but be in different statuses) to not make public most information pertaining to an investigation where an indictment has not been returned yet, and also specifically to preserve the secrecy of the proceedings before the grand jury.
> Which, it's worth pointing out, Manning has also said that she's willing to testify, but only by light of day, not behind closed doors.
Which is simple PR; federal grand juries considering criminal indictments cannot operate other than secretly.
Incidentally, this exact policy was why tables were flipped over The Comey Letter/press conference. When the FBI decides not to go forward with charges, they aren't supposed to say jack shit.
If it's a corporation with a political agenda, sure, that's an issue (though not of an absence of free press, just an inability to serve the purpose of having a free press); when it's a multitude of corporations with a diversity of political and financial agendas, less so.
OTOH, "freedom of the press" is not "immunity of people who publish information from all law", either.