You can't lump one thing with another. In this case there is a law that says you must do what a judge orders. That applies to anyone under scrutiny from the justice system.
The law is the law is only an argument if you're willing to always take it to it's full logical conclusion, so my question to you was, if this judge was ordering you to do something you felt was morally horrifying, such as for example sterilizing someone without their consent (as has been done in the past), would you accept it and do it?
If something is unjust, it must be complained about directly. In your example it is reasonable to complain about the law mandating sterilisation, but it is unreasonable to complain that a judge is requiring people to follow the law.
I don't really see how to get worked up about the publicly available information. The real issue is that the US government seems to have avenues available where it may be able keep not just the indictment process but also the trial itself secret; given all the damage done to the legal system in the hysteric response to 9/11 which will now be employed on people who are terrorising the US government.
I'm going to preempt anyone trying to say say that the FISA court system is not for cases like Wikileak's by pointing out that nobody knows what that court system is used for in practice. It is secret.
Ignoring a judge, purposefully and with premeditation, is not going to earn anyone reduced punishment. It is contempt of court.
Again, if the law has ethical problems it is reasonable to put up a bit of a struggle. Just don't complain about the justice system is somehow doing anything unexpected - the problem sits with the lawmakers.
The fact that this has to be explained shows how sheltered and naive some people are
If they're not happy they can move to a low law enforcement country, apparently it would be the paradise for them (except for the fact you'll probably be robbed most often than not, still)
> If they're not happy they can move to a low law enforcement country, apparently it would be the paradise for them (except for the fact you'll probably be robbed most often than not, still)
Haha, yeah, because of high law enforcement the USA is a paradise where no violence or robberies take place. I don't know about robberies, but there's a lot less violence in my country than in yours where shootings are regular.
Would still rather my nation have fairer law enforcement practices.
Sufficient enforcement is not a guarantee of lower crime rates
And again, it's a bit of lack of knowledge of how things work in the 3rd world
The law or rather the judges make judgement calls all the time. Does someone get bail? Does this person hide something? Is this interpretation by a lawyer sound? What mitigating circumstances should be considered in a judgement?
It's not like people ask for something unprecedented here and the law up until now was some mechanical process that always lead to the same outcome.
A normal legal system will have criteria of legality for what a court can demand, if not a clearly defined list of what it can and can not demand.
In US, well, a judge can demand you to stand on your head in the courtroom... and you will have to do that!
US has a history of people being hit with contempt of court for things being borderline silly.
My business law prof was a lawyer who began his career as a trial lawyer in USA, and then moved to Canada. One of reasons he said made him drop it was him feeling despair every time he saw judges spending court breaks smoking with prosecutors, and giving him a gawking look when they saw him looking at them. He said he felt that judges and prosecutors were pretty much teaming up on poor defendants, and that he had to fight courts as much as the prosecution side.
He was one of defence lawyers for black rights movement, panthers and poorer black people, during seventies. He was one of youngest lawyers around back then, and he ended up defending such cases because nobody more senior in the defence lawyer community wanted to take upon such "hopeless" cases.
How would you not call such legal system a joke? How can it pretend having any decorum?
It has been argued for a VERY long time that grand juries (which is why she can be put in jail repeatedly like this) are unjust. Many states do not even use them because of it. Grand juries get special privileges, like compelling people to testify without lawyers, or through double jeopardy as is the case here.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/fifth-amendment-grand-ju...
Many states do not use them because they prefer to subject people to public accusation of crime without the filtering process of a grand jury up front, but instead with a preliminary hearing after the fact (and therefore after the harm of the public accusation is realized.)
> Grand juries get special privileges, like compelling people to testify without lawyers, or through double jeopardy as is the case here.
That's not a special privilege, regular courts do the same thing, whether when conducting a preliminary hearing instead of grand jury indictment or at other points in the process: witnesses, unlike defendants, have no right to representation by counsel.
It may be, she's doing her small part to change something in the future. Her actions will be remembered. They already are by many people. And it's a bit myopic to just focus on "contempt of court" part.
Everytime Manning comes up, it just reminds me that US is still murdering people around the world without any justification or verification of who was killed in most cases, while the system is focussing on punishing her further - instead of trying to improve and save innocent lives.
I bet that to disclose hideous crimes would be unanimously seen as a morally acceptable act by the majority of the people.
The problem is not in the leaking act itself, the problem is the contents of the leaks.
But of course that's not what has happened. Most of the people involved walk free having been pardoned or not even charged at all. Especially at the top level nobody suffered any consequences.
Manning is in jail because high ranking politicians want her to be there. Judges are doing as they are told here.
That's pretty much what all CEOs and such do when they are testifying.
But that's one silly law that judge can compel you to talk but you can easily weasel your way out of it by saying things that might be true and give no information.
I think such law shouldn't exist as it can only harm only truthful, principled people but can do nothing to any wrongdoer.
It would in many ways be the only honest answer. The facts in question are almost a decade ago now. Chelsea is now in many senses a different person. The fine details of her comments could result in the execution of another person.
Anyone who is confident of the fine details from events ten years ago before experiencing a multitude of bad experiences is probably significantly overconfident in their recollection.
For example, if I have a piece of paper - Exhibit A, that demonstrates you were at a certain place at a certain time, that’s definitely valuable evidence but at trial opposing counsel could call into question the source of the document, chain of custody, or a number of other issues to contest its accuracy and/or validity. But if I have you on the stand and show you that piece of paper and you say, on the record, that it does seem like you were there, now I have Exhibit B - a record of your testimony, at the very least admitting the document seems legitimate and reliable. But most jurors would take your statement as pretty close to an admission.
Exhibit B is highly valuable because it’s almost impossible for your lawyer to contest.
As entertainingly frustrating as Sackler’s deposition was his responses were indeed some of the least valuable he could have possibly provided. I’m sure that was part of his legal team’s preparation for the meeting. “If that’s what it says then that’s what it says” is a meaningless tautology. But keeping up that sort of response throughout an entire line of questioning is difficult even in a deposition and takes a certain amount of IDGAF attitude that Sackler clearly has in spades. A deposition is also a bit different from the grand jury testimony Chelsea Manning would have given because a deposition isn’t a courtroom proceeding. Responses like Sackler’s wouldn’t fly if he were in front of a Judge.
In court, she could just invoke the Fifth Amendment, but I don’t know whether that applies to grand jury proceedings, especially since the grand jury isn’t investigating her and she’s already served time for any crimes she committed.
Also, if she were lying she could be charged with perjury.