Have a problem with the IRS and see if you can go to jail for not handing
over documents.

"DSK" wrote in message
...
You should have paid attention in school. You cannot be compelled to
testify against *yourself*.


Really? Does that include being forced to hand over documents, including
ones which probably don't exist? Seems to me that people are compelled
to testify against themselves all the time.


Curtis CCR wrote:
Yes. You can be compelled to hand over documents.

Of course, you *can* be, but should you be? To frame the question more
accurately, the Constitution & Bill of Rights set up very limited
circumstances in which the state (meaning the federal gov't) can stomp
down the citizen, and forbid such stopming all other times. I understood
this to be one of the latter, honored more in the breach with the 'advance
of civiliation' into modern times.

Sort of like the way the police can tap your phone, read your email, or
even ust down your door and give your home & belongings a good tossing.
Hey, if you're not a criminal, drug dealer, or terrorist, you have nothing
to fear, right?


... People are compelled to testify against
others in court everyday.


And this makes it right? Especially the situation under discussion, that
two reporters considered hostile by the Administration are ordered to
jail while other reporters who have done the exact same thing but are
pro-Bush/Cheney walk free?


Let me see if I have the correct score here.

ONE reporter sits in jail for refusing to disclose information

Not long ago it was two.

... she says
she has. Miller says she won't reveal her source - I don't believe any
one has ever claimed that she didn't have a source. She is not sitting
in jail for refusing to testify against herself. Get that straight -
there is no fifth ammendment issue here.

And yes, the general principal of compelling people to testify in court
is quite sound.


So, the state can force you to give evidence... documents or verbal
testimony... which you may or may not have... and lock you up forever if
you don't satisfy the court (meaning the prosecutor).

That sounds just peachy... are you allowed to sing all those songs about
what a free country this is while you rot in jail?



You have nothing to back that up. The question is still very much up
in the air and you have nothing to show that it is "pretty likely" to
fall one way or another.

C'mon, usually you have more sense than this. Is this going to be
President Bush's official backpedal tag-line? "No crime has been
committed" just like "We don't know or care where Bin Laden is now."

If no crime was committed, then why have a prosecutor in the first place?
Who's in charge here?

... We don't know if this special prosecutor
is looking to charge anyone with anything, or if he just digging to the
bottom what will prove to be a political mess.


Actually, I assume that the special prosecutor is seeking to whitewash the
whole thing.

DSK