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.
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.
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.
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.
Can't really blame Snowden for staying in the one place on earth US can't buy or blackmail.