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Pentagon says Bradley Manning’s treatment is all legal …

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Army Pfc. Bradley Manning AP/Grpahics Bank

The Pentagon is responding with specific denials to some of the claims from those opposed to the treatment of accused Wikileaks leaker Pfc. Bradley Manning.

Manning's treatment has been reviewed by the General Counsels of the Department of Defense, Navy and Marine Corps and found to be legal, according to the Pentagon. They say he is being treated the same as any other maximum security prisoner on Prevention of Injury watch would be.

Manning has been held in restrictive conditions at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va. since July 2010, and some have questioned his treatment, as well as why legal proceedings against him have taken so long to begin. Earlier this month, the Army filed 22 new charges against Manning and for the first time formally accused Manning of aiding the enemy.

Following news that Manning was being forced to sleep without clothes in his cell, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) charged that the miilitary's treatment of Manning is comparable to the abuse carried out at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The Pentagon now says that Manning's underwear was taken away from him at night after he said that if he wanted to kill himself he could use the elastic waistband on his underpants. He now wears a "tear proof garment" and does have blankets and a pillow.

The Pentagon does not dispute the claim from Manning's attorney that a psychologist has determined Manning not to be a suicide risk but says the decision on whether to put Manning on Prevention of Injury watch is up to the brig commander, not the psychologist. The brig commander is the one responsible for making sure nothing happens to him.

Manning's attorney David Coombs wrote in his blog that "the decision to strip PFC Manning of his clothing every night for an indefinite period of time is clearly punitive in nature," given the fact that Manning remains on Prevention of Injury watch but has not been placed on Suicide Risk Watch, which requires the Brig psychiatrist's recommendation.

The Pentagon additionally denies that Manning is not allowed to talk to prisoners in other cells and denies that Manning is only allowed to walk in circles during his one hour of exercise. He is allowed to talk to other prisoners - as long as it's not disruptive - and he is allowed to use exercise equipment if he wants to. Because he remains on Prevention of Injury watch, he is not allowed to exercise in his cell. Any other prisoner on Prevention of Injury watch would also not be allowed to exercise in their cell.

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Edward Snowden Is No Hero | The New Yorker

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Edward Snowden, a twenty-nine-year-old former C.I.A. employee and current government contractor, has leaked news of National Security Agency programs that collect vast amounts of information about the telephone calls made by millions of Americans, as well as e-mails and other files of foreign targets and their American connections. For this, some, including my colleague John Cassidy, are hailing him as a hero and a whistle-blower. He is neither. He is, rather, a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison.

Snowden provided information to the Washington Post and the Guardian, which also posted a video interview with him. In it, he describes himself as appalled by the government he served:

The N.S.A. has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your e-mails or your wifes phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your e-mails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.

I dont want to live in a society that does these sort of things I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.

What, one wonders, did Snowden think the N.S.A. did? Any marginally attentive citizen, much less N.S.A. employee or contractor, knows that the entire mission of the agency is to intercept electronic communications. Perhaps he thought that the N.S.A. operated only outside the United States; in that case, he hadnt been paying very close attention. In any event, Snowden decided that he does not want to live in a society that intercepts private communications. His latter-day conversion is dubious.

And what of his decision to leak the documents? Doing so was, as he more or less acknowledges, a crime. Any government employee or contractor is warned repeatedly that the unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a crime. But Snowden, apparently, was answering to a higher calling. When you see everything you realize that some of these things are abusive, he said. The awareness of wrongdoing builds up. There was not one morning when I woke up. It was a natural process. These were legally authorized programs; in the case of Verizon Businesss phone records, Snowden certainly knew this, because he leaked the very court order that approved the continuation of the project. So he wasnt blowing the whistle on anything illegal; he was exposing something that failed to meet his own standards of propriety. The question, of course, is whether the government can function when all of its employees (and contractors) can take it upon themselves to sabotage the programs they dont like. Thats what Snowden has done.

What makes leak cases difficult is that some leakingsome interaction between reporters and sources who have access to classified informationis normal, even indispensable, in a society with a free press. Its not easy to draw the line between those kinds of healthy encounters and the wholesale, reckless dumping of classified information by the likes of Snowden or Bradley Manning. Indeed, Snowden was so irresponsible in what he gave the Guardian and the Post that even these institutions thought some of it should not be disseminated to the public. The Post decided to publish only four of the forty-one slides that Snowden provided. Its exercise of judgment suggests the absence of Snowdens.

Snowden fled to Hong Kong when he knew publication of his leaks was imminent. In his interview, he said he went there because they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent. This may be true, in some limited way, but the overriding fact is that Hong Kong is part of China, which is, as Snowden knows, a stalwart adversary of the United States in intelligence matters. (Evan Osnos has more on that.) Snowden is now at the mercy of the Chinese leaders who run Hong Kong. As a result, all of Snowdens secrets may wind up in the hands of the Chinese governmentwhich has no commitment at all to free speech or the right to political dissent. And that makes Snowden a hero?

The American government, and its democracy, are flawed institutions. But our system offers legal options to disgruntled government employees and contractors. They can take advantage of federal whistle-blower laws; they can bring their complaints to Congress; they can try to protest within the institutions where they work. But Snowden did none of this. Instead, in an act that speaks more to his ego than his conscience, he threw the secrets he knew up in the airand trusted, somehow, that good would come of it. We all now have to hope that hes right.

Photograph by Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum.

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Hundreds of Millions in Cryptocurrency Vanishes After …

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(Newser) A CEO's untimely death, hard-to-crack passwords, and up to $190 million in missing cryptocurrency. These all underlie a mystery that Fortune calls the "implosion of Quadriga" after the December death of the QuadrigaCX coin exchange's chief, Gerald Cotten, at the age of 30, and now the FBI and Royal Canadian Mounted Police are reportedly involved. Cotten allegedly died in India of Crohn's disease complications, and he was the only one with access to the accounts of 115,000 Quadriga customersbut he apparently didn't leave his passwords with anyone, including his widow. The auditor Ernst & Young did manage to eventually get into the exchange, but it did so to a shocking find: All the digital wallets were cleaned out, per the BBC, which notes most of the funds were originally thought to be in "cold storage," meaning they weren't supposed to be accessible via the internet.

However, the E&Y report found 14 user accounts Cotten had "created outside the normal process," and CoinDesk poked around the transaction records and found indications someone moved the missing currency to "hot wallets" on other exchanges. Some even wonder if Cotten faked his own death, per Fortune. The upshot for Quadriga customers, per reporter Amy Castor, who offers a timeline of what happened with the exchange: "All of your money is gone." There's a $100,000 reward on the missing funds from Kraken, another cryptocurrency exchange, whose CEO, Jesse Powell, wants to both help his own customers who lost money through Quadriga and also keep the reputation of the cryptocurrency market overall intact. "I ... think you've got to get the family and staff and shareholders in a room for a few hours of interrogation to get to the bottom of what's going on," he tells Fortune. (Read more cryptocurrency stories.)

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Is Edward Snowden a Spy? A New Book Calls Him One …

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You can see the outlines of a coherent hypothesis in How America Lost Its Secrets. Perhaps Snowden was planted at the N.S.A. by either Russia or China, or by both. Perhaps while he was there he worked with other, as yet undetected, insiders who were also serving foreign powers. Perhaps in Hong Kong he put himself into the care of Chinese handlers who debriefed him extensively during the nearly two weeks between his arrival and his self-outing. Perhaps the same thing happened in Moscow during the first 37 days after he landed there, when he seems to have been hiding somewhere inside the airport security perimeter. Perhaps his reward for, in effect, defecting has been the odd protected life in Russia that celebrated spies like Kim Philby and Guy Burgess previously enjoyed. Perhaps his media-abetted role as a whistle-blower was merely a counterintuitive (because it was so public) new form of cover.

Epstein proves none of this. How America Lost Its Secrets is an impressively fluffy and golden-brown wobbly souffl of speculation, full of anonymous sourcing and suppositional language like it seems plausible to believe or it doesnt take a great stretch of the imagination to conclude. Epsteins first book, Inquest, published more than 50 years ago, featured another mysterious young man who spent time in Moscow, Lee Harvey Oswald. This book has a greatest-hits feeling, because it touches on several of Epsteins long-running preoccupations: Russia; the movie and media businesses; the gullibility of liberals; and, especially, the world of penetration, exfiltration, false flags and other aspects of counterintelligence. The spirit of James Jesus Angleton, the C.I.A.s mole-obsessed counterintelligence chief during the peak years of the Cold War and evidently a mentor to Epstein (hes mentioned several times), hovers over these pages.

Sometimes it seems as if Epstein so much enjoys exploring the twists and turns in Snowdens story his encounter with Snowdens mysterious lawyer in Moscow, Anatoly Kucherena, is especially memorable that he doesnt have an overwhelming need to settle the questions he raises. The sentence from The Wall Street Journal quoted above appears almost verbatim in the book, but its immediately followed by this: These severe accusations generated much heat but little light. They were not accompanied by any evidence showing that Snowden had acted in concert with any foreign power in stealing the files or, for that matter, that he was not acting out of his own personal convictions, no matter how misguided they might have been. But then Epstein spends many more pages considering, and not dismissing, the very same severe accusations, and ends by saying that Snowdens theft of state secrets ... had evolved, deliberately or not, but necessarily, into a mission of disclosing key national secrets to a foreign power.

This is Epsteins primary conclusion: Even if the American public was a partial beneficiary of Snowdens revelations, the main beneficiary was Russia, which to his mind couldnt possibly have failed to take possession of all the material Snowden took from the N.S.A. Whatever caveats he uses and whatever hard evidence he hasnt found, Epstein clearly wants to leave readers with the impression that Snowden remains in Russia as a result of a deal exchanging his information for its protection. He repeatedly hints that he has reason to be more certain about his conclusion than hes able to say in print.

Snowden, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, and their immediate circle of allies come from a radically libertarian hacker culture that, most of the time, doesnt believe there should be an N.S.A. at all, whether or not it remains within the confines of its legal charter. Epstein, conversely, is a strong supporter of the agencys official mission of communication intercepts, which he sees as an essential element in the United States ability to participate in the game of nations. To him one of the lessons of the Snowden case is that the agencys reliance on private contractors like Snowden instead of career employees has made it dangerously vulnerable to security breaches.

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Chelsea Manning jailed for refusing to testify before grand …

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March 8, 2019, 3:45 PM GMT/ UpdatedMarch 8, 2019, 11:50 PM GMT

By Pete Williams and Elisha Fieldstadt

Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning was jailed Friday after refusing to answer questions from a federal grand jury in Virginia looking into the release of documents to WikiLeaks.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton told Manning that she would remain in federal custody until she purges or the end of the life of the grand jury, a statement from her representatives said.

Manning told reporters earlier in the day that she was prepared to go to jail following the closed contempt hearing.

On Wednesday, Manning appeared before the same grand jury, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, but refused to answer any questions.

"I responded to each question with the following statement: I object to the question and refuse to answer on the grounds that the question is in violation of my First, Fourth, and Sixth Amendment, and other statutory rights," Manning said in a statement.

"All of the substantive questions pertained to my disclosures of information to the public in 2010 answers I provided in extensive testimony, during my court-martial in 2013," the statement said.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking a trove of military intelligence records to the anti-secrecy website Wikileaks. Her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2017 after seven years behind bars.

On Friday federal prosecutor Tracy McCormick and Manning's attorneys, Moira Meltzer-Cohen and Christopher Leibig, argued over the terms of Manning's incarceration.

Her representatives wanted the government to order her confined to home as a result of a recent operation -- ostensibly a gender-reassignment procedure that was reported in the fall -- and her need for prescription drug treatment.

The government argued that the William G. Truesdale Adult Detention Center, run by the sheriff of Alexandria, Virginia, could handle Manning's medical needs.

McCormick said Manning would be housed with women, but she otherwise gave no specific guarantees and said one unspecified drug would be out of the question.

"They have no issue with the prescribed hormones needed," the prosecutor said, referring to the jail's medical staff. "They do have an issue with the narcotic because that is just not allowed in a detention center."

Alexandria Sheriff Dana Lawhorne said in a statement, "We will work closely with the U.S. Marshals to ensure her proper care while she remains at our facility."

On Tuesday, a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia denied a motion filed by Manning's attorneys challenging a subpoena calling her to testify, according to her lawyers.

Manning told The Associated Press that she didn't know what case was about.

"I just know there were an awful lot of government lawyers there," she said Tuesday after her motion was denied.

"Grand juries are terrible, to say the least," Manning, 31, added.

Manning's support committee, Chelsea Resists!, called the grand jury system "dangerous and undemocratic."

"Grand juries operate in secret, allowing the government to retaliate against activists and dissidents behind closed doors," said a statement from the committee released by Manning's lawyers.

Donald Trump and his administration have publicly declared their disdain for Chelsea, and for President Obamas decision to commute her sentence," the Chelsea Resists! statement said. "Chelsea has stood by the testimony from her 2013 court-martial, and this subpoena serves no legitimate purpose. It is a punitive effort to reverse Obamas legacy, exposing Chelsea to legal hardship and possible imprisonment."

Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent who covers the Justice Department and the Supreme Court, based in Washington.

Elisha Fieldstadt is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.

Dennis Romero contributed.

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Chelsea Manning taken into custody for refusing to testify …

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Chelsea Manning, an anti-secrecy activist and former U.S. Army intelligence analyst whose release of classified information to WikiLeaks in 2010 sparked worldwide controversy over transparency in the military and whistleblower protections, was taken into custody at a federal court on Friday after a federal judge found her in contempt of court for refusing to answer questions before a secret grand jury.

In late January, Manning was subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in a sealed case out of the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia -- the same district in which the government recently inadvertently revealed the existence of a sealed indictment against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.

On Friday, after refusing to answer the grand jurys questions, U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton found Manning in contempt of court and ordered her to be held in jail until she decides to testify or until the grand jury concludes its work -- which could be up to 18 months, a lawyer for Manning said.

In a statement released earlier this week, Manning said she was prepared to face the consequences of her refusal to answer the panels questions.

A judge will consider the legal grounds for my refusal to answer questions in front of a grand jury, Manning said. The court may find me in contempt, and order me to jail.

Addressing reporters afterward on Friday, an attorney for Manning, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, suggested she may appeal the judges ruling.

I think its quite likely, Meltzer-Cohen said. This is an appealable order.

Mannings latest incarceration drew ire and concern from Meltzer-Cohen, who called the decision "an act of tremendous cruelty and expressed concern for Mannings health and safety in the Alexandria, Va., detention center.

But during Fridays hearing most of which was conducted in secret, although reporters were allowed to enter for part the government prosecutor assigned to the case, Tracy McCormick, assured Mannings defense counsel that Manning would receive proper medical attention and privacy, adding that Manning could free herself by cooperating with the court.

The government does not want to confine Ms. Manning, McCormick said. She could change her mind right now and decide to testify."

Meltzer-Cohen thanked the government, which she said "bent over backwards to accommodate [Manning's medical] needs."

In 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for the unauthorized disclosure of classified materials made public by WikiLeaks in 2010. The leaks included millions of diplomatic cables and a video from July 2007 of a U.S. helicopter in Baghdad firing on a group of civilians that killed two Reuters photographers and wounded two children.

Her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2017.

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Chelsea Manning taken into custody for refusing to testify ...

Chelsea Manning in custody after refusing to testify before …

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Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army analyst who served seven years in prison for leaking a trove of classified information, was found in contempt of court and taken into custody Friday after refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks.

Manning was ordered to jail by U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton after a brief hearing in which Manning confirmed she had no intention of testifying. She told the judge she will accept whatever you bring upon me.

CHELSEA MANNING AGAIN TWEETS 'F--- THE POLICE' ON LAW ENFORCEMENT APPRECIATION DAY

Manning reportedly objects to the secrecy of the grand jury process andsaid she's already revealed everything she knows during her court-martial. The judge ordered Manning to remain behind bars until she testifies or until the grand jury concludes its work.

"These secret proceedings tend to favor the government," Manning told reporters before her hearing, according to The Washington Post. "Im always willing to explain things publicly."

Mannings lawyers have asked she be confined to her home instead due tothe medical complications she faces.

Chelsea Manning was ordered to jail Friday, March 8, 2019, for refusing to testify to a Virginia grand jury investigating Wikileaks. (AP Photo/Matthew Barakat)

The judge,however, concluded U.S. Marshals could appropriately handle her medical care.

Manning told reporters she expected to be jailed and that she had already invoked her First, Fourth and Sixth Amendment protections when she appeared before a grand jury in Alexandria on Wednesday.

Manning served seven years of a 35-year military sentence for leaking military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks before then-President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.

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Prosecutor Tracy McCormick said Manning can easily end the incarceration on the civil charge by testifying.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Chelsea Manning jailed for refusal to testify in WikiLeaks case

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Washington (AFP) - Chelsea Manning, who spent more than three years in prison for leaking US military secrets to WikiLeaks, was jailed again Friday for refusing to testify in a grand jury investigation targeting the anti-secrecy group.

US District Judge Claude Hilton ruled Manning in contempt of court and ordered her held not as punishment but to force her testimony in the secret case, according to a spokesman for the US attorney in the Alexandria, Virginia federal court.

"Chelsea Manning has been remanded into federal custody for her refusal to provide testimony," said a statement from the Sparrow Project, a support group for Manning.

They quoted Hilton as saying Manning would be held indefinitely "until she purges or the end of the life of the grand jury."

In a statement, Manning said she had "ethical" objections to the grand jury system and had answered all questions about her involvement with WikiLeaks years ago.

"I stand by my previous testimony," Manning said.

"I will not participate in a secret process that I morally object to, particularly one that has been historically used to entrap and persecute activists for protected political speech."

Manning, 31, was ordered to testify earlier this week for an investigation examining actions by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2010, according to her own description, inadvertent court revelations and media reports.

At the time Manning, a transgender woman then known as Bradley Manning, was a military intelligence analyst.

She delivered more than 700,000 classified documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into WikiLeaks's hands.

The documents exposed cover-ups of possible war crimes and revealed internal US communications about other countries.

- 'Attack on media freedom' -

She became a hero to anti-war and anti-secrecy activists, and her actions helped make WikiLeaks a force in the global anti-secrecy movement.

She was detained in 2010 and held in military jails for investigation before finally being brought to trial in 2013.

In August that year she was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

She spent more than three years more in an all-male prison, during which she underwent gender transition therapy, spent time in solitary confinement and attempted suicide twice.

President Barack Obama later commuted her sentence, leading to her release in May 2017.

In court Friday, Manning's lawyer requested home confinement after the judge found her in contempt, according to the US attorney's spokesman.

But she was jailed in the Alexandria Detention Center which, according to the judge, is experienced in holding transgender inmates and capable of addressing any special personal and medical needs Manning may have.

The grand jury investigation could eventually herald a case focused on media freedoms.

The US government has been investigating Assange and WikiLeaks for years and has stepped up its efforts against the Britain-based group after it served as an outlet for internal Democratic communications that Washington alleges were stolen by hackers from Russia's GRU intelligence agency during the 2016 US election.

Fearing arrest and extradition to the United States, Assange has been sheltering in Ecuador's embassy in London since 2012.

He says WikiLeaks's publishing of US secrets is no different than what the mass media does and he should enjoy the same protections as journalists.

Reacting to Manning being sent to jail Friday, WikiLeaks said in a tweet: "Whistleblowers are now being forced to testify against journalists and sent to jail when they don't cooperate. A new angle in the attack on media freedom."

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Chelsea Manning jailed for refusal to testify in WikiLeaks case

From Jail, Chelsea Manning Blasts Grand Jury’s Secret …

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23:29 08.03.2019(updated 02:39 09.03.2019) Get short URL

US whistleblower Chelsea Manning issued a statement shortly after her arrest Friday, confirming that she has no intention of complying with the grand jury she's been summoned before. The grand jury wants to question her with regard to her 2010 public disclosures of military and diplomatic secrets.

"I will not comply withthis, or any other grand jury. Imprisoning me formy refusal toanswer questions only subjects me toadditional punishment formy repeatedly-stated ethical objections tothe grand jury system," the statement reads.

"The grand jury's questions pertained todisclosures fromnine years ago, and took place six years afteran in-depth computer forensics case, inwhich I testified foralmost a full day aboutthese events. I stand bymy previous public testimony."

Manning went onto note that she "will not participate ina secret process that I morally object to, particularly one that has been historically used toentrap and persecute activists forprotected political speech."

The whistleblower's statement came aftershe was arrested Friday when a federal judge found her incontempt ofcourt forrefusing torespond toany and all questions beforea grand jury.

Moira Meltzer-Cohen, Manning's attorney, told reporters outsidea federal courthouse inVirginia that her client can be held forthe term ofthe grand jury, noting that Manning's detainment can't last more than18 months.

However, when asked whether Manning would be held forthe full 18-month period, Meltzer-Cohen said that "we are not there yet."

"As everybody knows, Chelsea has tremendous courage," the attorney said. "Our primary concern atthis point is her health while she is confined, and we will be paying close attention."

Manning appeared Wednesday beforea grand jury atthe US District Court forthe Eastern District ofVirginia, butrefused toanswer questions, citing the First, Fourth and Sixth Amendments ofthe US Constitution, Sputnik previously reported.

"The court's decision toimprison Chelsea Manning forrefusing tocomply witha grand jury is pointless, punitive, and cruel," a statement fromManning's Support Committee reads.

"It is no secret that members ofthe current administration have openly expressed their hatred forChelsea. Donald Trump himself has tweeted abouthis desire toundo Barack Obama's commutation and put Chelsea back injail. We reject the logic that Chelsea should comply and answer questions regarding events forwhich she has already provided ample testimony, and we condemn the government's punitive efforts toback her intoa corner."

According toLaw & Crime, the case that Manning's testimony was requested foris being handled bythe US Attorney's Office forthe Eastern District ofVirginia, the very same US attorney's office that previously accidentally pasted language referring topossible criminal charges againstWikiLeaks founder Julian Assange intolegal documents abouta separate case. Although the office did own upto the mistake, it did not confirm or deny whether charges were going tobe filed againstAssange, who is currently staying put insidethe Ecuadorian embassy inLondon outof fear ofbeing extradited tothe US.

Ann Wright, a former US State Department official who resigned inprotest ofthe invasion ofIraq, told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clearon Friday that she was "horrified" tolearn ofManning's arrest. She also indicated that any information regarding Manning's knowledge ofthe 2010 disclosures were already detailed ingovernment records.

In response tothe latest development, friends and associates ofManning have created a fund tohelp cover any ofher legal costs.

Manning was previously sentenced to35 years inprison forhanding overinternal documents toWikiLeaks. Her sentence was commuted bythen-US President Barack Obama in2017 asone ofhis last official acts. She served seven years behindbars.

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Chelsea Manning could face 18 months in jail after grand jury …

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Whistleblower Chelsea Manning, a former US Army analyst who leaked troves classified information to WikiLeaks, was jailed again on Friday after she refused to testify in front of a grand jury that is reportedly probing WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, according to numerous news outlets.

Despite being accused of no crime, Manning faces up to 18 months in jail as part of a civil contempt sanction.

"Chelsea can be incarcerated for the remainder of the grand jury [up to 18 months], and the term of the grand jury can be extended by six months," Manning's attorney Moira Meltzer-Cohen told INSIDER.

Moira Meltzer-Cohen said Manning was held in contempt of court under the "the recalcitrant witness statute," which specifically pertains to "someone who is refusing to give testimony before a grand jury."

Despite being accused of no crime, the statute allows individuals to be confined "in a 'suitable place,'" for no more than 18 months, while the grand jury is underway.

"The only lawful purpose for such confinement is to coerce them to change their mind and give testimony. So they can't be punished for a refusal to testify, but they may be 'civilly confined' to see if they will agree to change their mind and give testimony," said Meltzer-Cohen.

Read more: Whistleblower Chelsea Manning arrested after refusing to testify in secret WikiLeaks case

"Today's decision was not unexpected, but it's an appealable order," she continued.

The Justice Department's website echoes Meltzer-Cohen, saying, "civil contempt sanctions which are designed to compel future compliance with a court order are coercive and avoidable through obedience, and 'thus may be imposed in an ordinary civil proceeding upon notice and an opportunity to be heard. Neither a jury trial nor proof beyond a reasonable doubt is required.'"

In a statement, Manning said she refused to answer the questions of the grand jury, whose proceedings are under seal. In response to each question, she said she answered, "I object to the question and refuse to answer on the grounds that the question is in violation of my First, Fourth, and Sixth Amendment, and other statutory rights."

"All of the substantive questions pertained to my disclosures of information to the public in 2010 answers I provided in extensive testimony, during my court-martial in 2013," her statement continued.

WikiLeaks alleged in January that federal prosecutors have been working to secure testimony for a grand jury pertaining to criminal charges being levied by the Trump administration.

In a statement, Manning's support committee, Chelsea Resists, called the ruling punitive, and pointed to previous statements from President Donald Trump about Manning, saying, "It is no secret that members of the current administration have openly expressed their hatred for Chelsea. Donald Trump himself has tweeted about his desire to undo Barack Obama's commutation and put Chelsea back in jail."

The judge rejected Manning's lawyer's request that she be confined at home due to medical and safety concerns.

"It has always been our intent and hope for her to testify and comply with the valid court order and valid grand jury investigation," federal prosecutor Tracy Doherty-McCormick said in a statement relayed to The New York Times. "Ms. Manning could change her mind right now and do so. It is her choice. This is a rule of law issue, and Ms. Manning is not above the law."

Manning isn't the first high-profile person to face jail after allegations of civil contempt. Susan McDougal spent 18 months in jail after she refused to answer three questions pertaining to the Whitewater scandal that surrounded President Bill Clinton, according to CNN.

In 2006, Greg F. Anderson, personal trainer to then-San Francisco Giants' player Barry Bonds, was held in contempt twice after refusing to testify for two different grand juries investigating perjury charges against Bonds. Anderson was held in jail for over a year until Bonds was indicted in 2007.

In February, an appeals court sided with a lower court in ruling that Roger Stone associate Andrew Miller was in contempt for refusing to testify in front of a Mueller grand jury, according to CNN. It's not clear whether Miller will testify, continue to fight the subpoena, or be jailed.

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