Did anybody ever think of offering minimum wage plus travel expenses to terrorism suspects?

[Boojatta]

If there's enough money to pay them at least the statutory minimum wage for their time, then they might be willing to go to any government offices in reasonably convenient locations to provide detailed answers to any questions that people in charge of national security would like to ask.

[virgogal]

1. Huh?

[maxsolomon]

2. Strange. I think of nothing else.

BOOJATTA THREAD!

[Trajan]

3. Go read a book ...

Jeez ...

[Boojatta]

4. Do you mean a book about how some rigid bureaucracies are penny wise and pound foolish?

People who are eyewitnesses of some specific event can simply be required to testify via subpoena. However, there's not necessarily any specific event to discuss with someone who is a mere suspect or merely acquainted with a suspect. Also, if there are investigations of people who haven't done anything illegal, and are merely suspected of being risks to national security, then those investigations don't take place through the asking of questions under oath in court.

Of course, getting a subpoena to testify as an eyewitness isn't the only way that people arrive in court. For example, some people do jury duty. In many jurisdictions, the statutory or regulatory compensation for doing jury duty hasn't kept pace with inflation. Many standard employment contracts handle this problem for employees by specifying that if an employee is required to do jury duty, then the employee will receive regular wages. In the absence of the employment contract, the nominal compensation paid by a government for the time of people who are doing jury duty would go to the employee, but it's common for that money to go to the employer instead.