RI Subject - Reality Winner

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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Aug 23, 2018 2:22 pm

Chris Sampson


@TAPSTRIMEDIA
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The next person who wants to leak to Greenwald should just go straight to the FBI and turn themselves in, save us all the hassle and reduce their sentence via cooperation.
9:30 AM - 23 Aug 2018

Reality Winner was sentenced and The Intercept took a victory lap over it. Pathetic. They (under direction of Greenwald) love to get Winner-Snowden wannabes to give them information to leak to the public but once they take that risk, they'll find they're just ego pawns for GG

Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Aug 23, 2018 6:37 pm

She warned America that Russia hacked our voting rolls. Why is she in jail?


Will Bunch
She warned America that Russia hacked our voting rolls. Why is she in jail? | Will Bunch

MICHAEL HOLAHAN / AUGUSTA CHRONICLE
Last week's news that special counsel Robert Mueller had the goods on 12 high-level Russian spies whose job was to hack computers and muck up America's 2016 presidential election was a political bombshell — but also a resounding vindication for a 26-year-old Georgia woman with the wonderfully poetic name of Reality Winner.

In the spring of 2017, with public concern mounting about the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, federal officials still sought to assure people that there'd been no major success in penetrating electronic voting systems. But Winner, a commended Air Force veteran with a top-secret security clearance, then working for a government contractor, had seen evidence that federal officials weren't telling the whole truth.

And so Winner did what Daniel Ellsberg, Mark Felt, and others whose difficult decisions made in real time have long since been vindicated by history had done: She blew the whistle. In sending her evidence to the news media, Winner took down a cover-up of information that the Russians had, in fact, been far more aggressive — and successful — in targeting voting systems. Indeed, one major electronic voting-records vendor, later identified as VR Systems, had been hacked into, and Russians then used that information to target voting officials in the critical swing state of Florida with "spear-phishing" emails aimed at compromising their computer networks.

Several key state officials said no one had warned them about the Russian scheme until the leaked memo from the National Security Agency, or NSA, appeared in The Intercept in June 2017. To them, Winner's leak was a form of public service. And both the validity of the information, and its seriousness, was confirmed last week when the hacking of VR Systems and other underreported Russian efforts to gain access to voter rolls was a centerpiece of Mueller's indictment.

But to say that the vindication of Reality Winner was bittersweet would be a gross understatement.

When the indictments came down, the young Air Force vet still sat in a Lincoln County, Ga., jail cell, awaiting formal sentencing after she decided in June to plead guilty to one count of felony transmission of national defense information, an inevitable outcome in a federal prosecution that was ridiculously stacked against Winner from Day One. Under her plea agreement, Winner will spend 5 years and three months in prison — until late 2022, if time served is included.

Winner's arrest and the aggressive prosecution of her under a federal law — the Espionage Act — intended for spies, not whistle-blowers, came just four months after President Trump and then-FBI director Jim Comey sat in the Oval Office and spoke about jailing journalists and the need to put a leaker's (in Comey's acknowledged words) "head on a pike." They both laughed about that.

Prosecutors then brought them the head of Reality Winner, and the case is no laughing matter. Not when a president has already declared war on the public's right to know what his government is doing and has branded journalists as "enemies of the American people."

Winner, who won an Air Force Commendation Medal for her work in identifying "high-value targets" for American drone strikes, is clearly a woman with a strong notion of right and wrong, who wanted America to do better. For that, she was punished under a law aimed at traitors and forced to surrender 63 months of her freedom, the longest sentence, if it's not commuted, that will ever be served by an American whistle-blower. Her unconscionable punishment shows how a national-security state can devolve into a police state when the issue becomes who owns the truth: the government or the governed.

"Far from a criminal, she should be considered a hero," Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which supported Winner during her prosecution, told me. Timm is also a little dumbfounded (and so am I) that Winner's case didn't get more attention, in a time when the Trump-Russia story is often the lead item on cable TV news. Or why she didn't get more support from mainstream news orgs in a time when the White House has all but declared war on journalism.

After all, Trump's expressed passion for jailing journalists and his Justice Department's zeal in prosecuting Winner to the fullest extent of the law may be appalling, but it's also the culmination of a long-standing war on whistle-blowers that's accelerated with the security-state obsessions of post-9/11 America, under presidencies and Congresses run by both parties.

It was a Democrat, Barack Obama, who ran in 2008 with a promise to extend protections to whistle-blowers, only to betray those words as president. Under Obama, eight whistle-blowers were prosecuted, initially, under the Espionage Act, far more than any commander-in-chief who came before him. Most of the persecuted made the same difficult choice as Winner, pleading guilty to lesser charges because of the Kafkaesque nature of the Espionage Act.

America's obsession with valuing its secrecy over doing the right thing led to utter absurdities. Not a single high-ranking government official spent one day behind bars for the unlawful torture of terrorism suspects, arguably the greatest moral stain on our nation during the George W. Bush years, but a CIA analyst who blew the whistle on torture named John Kiriakou was locked up for two years in a federal prison here in Pennsylvania.

So far, history is repeating itself. The nightmare of a foreign power like Russia trying to tip the scales of a weakened American democracy and install Donald Trump in the White House is the political scandal of the century, and yet two years into it, the only person convicted of a felony and sitting in a jail cell is the woman seeking to expose part of the cover-up.

Yet, as Timm noted, the perversions of the American justice system when it comes to government secrecy made it essentially impossible for Winner to defend herself. Under the Espionage Act, defendants aren't able to present evidence about their motive, that a leak of documents was in the public interest and didn't actually harm national security, as seemed true here. A motion by Winner's lawyers to allow testimony from the state election officials who were grateful to learn about the security flaws exposed by the leak was shot down by the federal judge who also refused to grant bail to the Air Force veteran.

Timm noted, incredulously, that the day after the leaked NSA document was published in The Intercept, a federal agency — the U.S. Election Assistance Commission — sent out a bulletin to state officials warning about the security issues that had been revealed. "This is at the same time," Timm noted, "that the government was saying that by releasing this information, Reality Winner was putting national security at risk."

If America wants to emerge from the current quagmire, we need a system that will encourage responsible truth-tellers, not deprive them of their liberty. Let's be honest: Those things aren't going to happen with a president who's at war with the First Amendment or a Congress brainwashed to do his bidding. But if citizens do succeed in flipping the government over the next couple of cycles, how can a new generation of leaders keep the promise that Barack Obama broke a decade ago, and make America safe for the next Reality Winner?

Timm said any solution would start with rewriting the Espionage Act, to make it clear that the law is targeting treasonous spies, not patriotic whistle-blowers. Likewise, he said federal law could also be reformed to allow whistle-blowers like Winner or Kiriakou to present evidence on whether their leak was motivated by the public interest or whether national security was, in fact, harmed.

What's more, we need more big shots in Big Media with the biggest megaphones to help remind people that it was leaked information that let the public know about the depths of Watergate, the crimes committed at Abu Ghraib, and the Vietnam War lying that was laid bare in the Pentagon Papers. In fact, it's a little crazy — and maybe revealing — that while the journalism world was going ga-ga over the Pentagon Papers-era defiance in the movie The Post, very little ink was spilled in defense of Reality Winner.

All of us, true political leaders, the media, everyday citizens, need to fight for courage and for truth-telling and to speak out in its defense, or else we will continue to stumble through our current nightmare, where reality is a loser.
http://www2.philly.com/philly/columnist ... 3Dsharebar
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Aug 24, 2018 9:47 pm


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDK77e9Hz-g

Mother of NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner: My Daughter Was “Nailed to the Door” by the Trump Admin
STORYAUGUST 24, 2018Watch iconWatch Full Show


mother of Reality Leigh Winner, the U.S. intelligence contractor who was just sentenced to 63 months in prison for leaking a top-secret document to The Intercept.
NSA whistleblower Reality Winner has been sentenced to five years and three months in prison—the longest sentence ever imposed in federal court for leaking government information to the media. Twenty-six-year-old Reality Winner is the first person to be sentenced under the Espionage Act since President Trump took office. Her sentencing Thursday came after she pleaded guilty in June to transmitting a top-secret document to a news organization. She had faced up to 10 years in prison. We speak with her mother, Billie Winner-Davis.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: NSA whistleblower Reality Winner has been sentenced to five years and three months in prison—the longest sentence ever imposed in federal court for leaking government information to the media. The 26-year-old Reality Winner is the first person to be sentenced under the Espionage Act since President Trump took office. Her sentencing Thursday came after she pleaded guilty in June to transmitting a top-secret document to a news organization. She had faced up to 10 years in prison.

This is Bobby Christine, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, speaking after Winner’s sentencing.

BOBBY CHRISTINE: The sentence rendered today is the longest received by a defendant for an unauthorized disclosure of national defense information to the media. It appropriately satisfies the need for both punishment and deterrence, in light of the nature and seriousness of the offense. … Winner’s purposeful violation put our nation’s security at risk. … She claimed to hate America. When asked, “You don’t really hate America, right?” she responded, “I mean, yeah, I do. It’s literally the worst thing to happen on the planet.” She was the quintessential example of an insider threat.
AMY GOODMAN: Reality Winner was arrested by FBI agents at her home in Augusta, Georgia, June 3rd, 2017, two days before The Intercept published an exposé revealing Russian military intelligence conducted a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software company just days before the U.S. presidential election in 2016. The exposé was based on a classified NSA report from May 5th, 2017, that shows the agency is convinced the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, was responsible for interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

Earlier this morning, President Trump tweeted about the case, saying, quote, “Ex-NSA contractor to spend 63 months in jail over 'classified' information. Gee, this is 'small potatoes' compared to what Hillary Clinton did! So unfair Jeff, Double Standard.” He was referring to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who he has been attacking over the last 24 hours.

For more, we’re joined by three guests who were in the courtroom Thursday during Reality Winner’s sentencing. Joining us via Democracy Now! video stream is Billie Winner-Davis, mother of Reality Leigh Winner. She’s joining us from Augusta, where Reality Winner was sentenced. In Atlanta, Georgia, Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He has been covering Reality’s case and has covered several whistleblower trials, including that of Chelsea Manning. He was in the courtroom on Wednesday. And in Washington, D.C., James Risen is with us, The Intercept's senior national security correspondent, a best-selling author and a former New York Times reporter, also serves as director of First Look Media's Press Freedom Defense Fund.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Reality’s mother, Billie Winner-Davis. You were in the courtroom with your daughter. Can you explain your—can you share your reaction to her plea deal and sentencing?

BILLIE WINNER-DAVIS: Well, I think yesterday my initial reaction to the whole proceeding and the judge’s sentencing was, I was relieved that the judge did approve of the plea agreement that the parties had reached for the 63 months in prison with a 3-year supervised release. Today I’m a little bit bitter. I’m a little angry. No, I should say I’m a lot bitter today. Just processing it, knowing that she is going to be serving the longest prison sentence for this, hearing Mr. Christine’s comments about her, hearing, you know, again, that she has to be the deterrent for anyone else in America who would think of warning us, of blowing the whistle on something important like this, it’s just—it’s really hard. It’s hard, as her mother, to have to experience this and to know that she’s going to be the one who is going to set the example. She is that first leaker under Trump’s administration. She’s the first one that they intended to nail to the door as a message to others.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you share Reality’s statement yesterday before the judge?

BILLIE WINNER-DAVIS: Reality had a pretty lengthy statement that she had worked on. She basically—she let the judge know a little bit about who she was. She did share with the court that she was grateful for the professionalism that everyone had shown to her, the respectful environment. She let the court know, you know, a little bit about who she was, why she went in to serve her country. She basically went through her childhood, her relationship with her father, how 9/11 had affected her as a child, how she followed her stepbrother’s footsteps to go into the Air Force to be a linguist. She wanted to serve her country. She really had the desire to protect and defend and serve her country. I think she was trying to, you know, let the court know that although in some statements with texting with her sister she did indicate that she hates America, that that’s not really who she was. And so, she was really letting the court know a little bit about herself.

She also apologized to the court. She apologized to the government for the breach of trust. She apologized to the court and the government for the expense that she has cost them. She apologized to her family. She indicated that she knew that what she had done was wrong. She indicated that she was willing to accept responsibility and willing to move forward and accept the consequences of her actions.

AMY GOODMAN: How long has she been in jail, Billie?

BILLIE WINNER-DAVIS: She’s been in jail for about 15 months.

AMY GOODMAN: Will that be part—will time served be part of that five—more than five years in jail?

BILLIE WINNER-DAVIS: Yes, it’s my understanding that that time served will count toward her sentence, day for day.

AMY GOODMAN: When she came into the courtroom, you heard her shackles?

BILLIE WINNER-DAVIS: Yes. That was—that was really difficult. That’s the first time that we’ve heard that, I think, because typically she’s been in the courtroom downstairs, and there’s carpeting. You know, you kind of hear her shuffle. But yesterday it was very quiet when they brought her in. And when she went up to the podium, you could actually hear her leg shackles hit the floor and make that clanking sound. It’s really striking that every time that Reality has appeared in court, she has to wear the orange inmate jumpsuit. She is shackled. She is very much presented as a criminal in that court. They dehumanize her, and they portray her as a criminal.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, your daughter Reality will be incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas. Why a medical center?

BILLIE WINNER-DAVIS: That is only the recommendation at this time. That’s the recommendation that her defense team is making for her, the recommendation that a psychiatrist is making for her. And the judge actually approved of that recommendation yesterday. Whether or not she’s placed there, we won’t know. That will be up to the Bureau of Prisons to decide. But we do feel like that facility will meet her needs. My daughter does suffer from severe depression. She does suffer from bulimia. This entire situation with her being incarcerated, her inability to really control her environment, has been very difficult on her. And we’re hoping that she is placed there, so that they can meet her needs and she can get the treatment that she needs.

AMY GOODMAN: And did you speak to her? Were you able to communicate with her yesterday?

BILLIE WINNER-DAVIS: Afterward, she called me when she was back at the jail. The defense team did ask the marshals if we could be allowed, you know, a brief visit with her yesterday at the courthouse. And again, we were denied. They make this request whenever they can. And again, the marshals will not permit us to be in the same room with her.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then come back to this discussion. We’re speaking to Billie Winner-Davis. She is the mother of Reality Winner, who has just been sentenced to more than five years for releasing intelligence, leaking a top-secret document to The Intercept. When we come back, in addition to Billie Winner-Davis, we’ll be joined by Jim Risen. He is now at The Intercept. He’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. He himself has been prosecuted, under the Obama administration. And we’ll talk about that, as well. And Kevin Gosztola, longtime reporter, in the courtroom yesterday, he’ll be speaking to us from Atlanta. Stay with us.
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/24/ ... ity_winner



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz49DjuPzaM


James Risen: Reality Winner’s Sentence Is One of the Worst Miscarriages of Justice in Recent History
STORYAUGUST 24, 2018Watch iconWatch Full Show



NSA
Whistleblowers
GUESTS

Kevin Gosztola
managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He has been covering Reality Winner’s case and has covered several whistleblower trials, including that of Chelsea Manning.
James Risen
The Intercept's senior national security correspondent, a best-selling author and a former New York Times reporter. He is also director of First Look Media's Press Freedom Defense Fund.
LINKS

Reality Winner's Sentencing: Culmination of an Effort to Break Whistleblower's Spirit
NSA whistleblower Reality Winner was handed the longest sentence ever imposed in federal court for leaking government information to the media Thursday. She is the first person to be sentenced under the Espionage Act since President Trump took office. Winner was arrested by FBI agents at her home in Augusta, Georgia, on June 3, 2017, two days before The Intercept published an exposé revealing Russian military intelligence conducted a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software company just days before the U.S. presidential election. The exposé was based on a classified NSA report from May 5, 2017, that shows that the agency is convinced the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, was responsible for interfering in the 2016 presidential election. For more, we speak with Kevin Gosztola, managing editor of Shadowproof Press, and James Risen, The Intercept’s senior national security correspondent and former New York Times reporter.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re talking about the latest on NSA whistleblower Reality Winner, who’s just been sentenced to more than five years—63 months in prison—the longest sentence ever imposed in federal court for leaking government information to the media. Reality Winner is 26. She’s the first person to be sentenced under the Espionage Act since President Trump took office. Her sentencing came Thursday, after she pleaded guilty in June to transmitting a top-secret document to a news organization. She had faced up to 10 years in prison.

Our guests are Reality’s mom, Billie Winner-Davis. We’re also going to be speaking with Jim Risen of The Intercept, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. But first, right now, we’re going to Kevin Gosztola, who was in the courtroom yesterday. Kevin, this is the longest-ever sentence of this type. Please explain.

KEVIN GOSZTOLA: Yes, and it should be emphasized that the Justice Department was quite gleeful about this accomplishment. And people should recognize that Reality Winner is going to jail for a single count under the Espionage Act. There have been other leak cases. And in most of those cases, the Justice Department has been able to charge those individuals with several offenses, multiple counts under the Espionage Act. In the case of Jeffrey Sterling, a CIA whistleblower, he was sentenced for, I believe it was, seven counts of violating the Espionage Act, ended up with a total of 42 months in prison. So, just divide that up, and you can tell that’s way less than five years for a single violation of the Espionage Act. John Kiriakou, CIA whistleblower, he had a plea agreement for 30 months and did time in federal prison. And while that was for an Intelligence Identities Protection Act violation, he was prosecuted under the Espionage Act and eventually was able to bargain out a much, much lower and less severe sentence. So, it does seem like this is extraordinary when you view Reality Winner’s case.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to a statement from Betsy Reed, editor-in-chief of The Intercept, who wrote, “The vulnerability of the American electoral system is a national topic of immense gravity, but it took Winner’s act of bravery to bring key details of an attempt to compromise the democratic process in 2016 to public attention. Those same details were included in the July indictment of alleged Russian military intelligence operatives issued by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Instead of being recognized as a conscience-driven whistle-blower whose disclosure helped protect U.S. elections, Winner was prosecuted with vicious resolve,” Betsy Reed wrote, again, editor-in-chief of The Intercept.

We’re going to go right now to Jim Risen, who is a reporter now with The Intercept, The Intercept's senior national security correspondent, best-selling author and former New York Times reporter. Also, First Look Media's Press Freedom Defense Fund, he’s director of that, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

Jim, you, too, were in the courtroom yesterday. Can you respond to the sentence that Reality Winner received?

JAMES RISEN: I think it was outrageous. I think what has been done by the Trump administration to Reality is just terrible, and it’s one of the worst miscarriages of justice I’ve seen in a long time. What Reality Winner did was a public service. The disclosure of the document in this, that The Intercept published, was—it provided a really important wake-up call to the American people that the Russian—that Russian intelligence was hacking into the election systems of states. And the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a report earlier this year, wrote that the Homeland Security Department had failed to adequately warn state election officials about the Russian hacking threat, and said, in their—in the Senate report, it said it was only because of press disclosures that state officials began to be alerted to the Russian threat, cyberthreat, which shows that even Congress recognizes that what Reality Winner did was a public service.

And so, I think one of the things that we at the Press Freedom Fund want to try to push for is to try to get the government to stop using this draconian Espionage Act against whistleblowers in the way that they have been. It’s an archaic World War I-era law that the government uses because it’s so vague that you can charge almost anybody for anything. And it’s not being used against spies anymore. It’s only being used against people who actually talk to American reporters to reveal important matters.

AMY GOODMAN: In a recent sentencing memorandum, prosecutors argued Reality Winner deserved the unprecedented sentence because, quote, “the defendant’s unauthorized disclosure caused exceptionally grave harm to our national security.” Jim Risen, your response?

JAMES RISEN: That’s just not true. If you look at the indictment of the 12 Russian intelligence operatives, virtually the entire information in there is the same information made public in the—it was based on some of the same information that was in that NSA document. And the Robert Mueller indictment reveals that the Russian intelligence operatives that were targeted in this indictment were already aware, as of 2016, that the U.S. was investigating them and that they were alerted to that not by the leak to The Intercept, but by other actions taken by the U.S. government, and that the Russian official who was in charge of the hacking of election systems in that Russian unit had taken steps in 2016 to protect himself from American intelligence, which shows that a year before this document was published by The Intercept, other actions had already been taken by the U.S. government to alert the Russians that they were being monitored by the United States, which gives the lie to the idea that somehow anything that we published at The Intercept had anything to do with alerting the Russians about the American intelligence surveillance of them, and shows that there was no damage caused by this leak.

AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this morning, Jim, President Trump tweeted, saying, “Ex-NSA contractor to spend 63 months in jail over 'classified' information. Gee, this is 'small potatoes' compared to what Hillary Clinton did! So unfair Jeff, Double Standard,” of course, referring to Jeff Sessions, who he wants to oust as attorney general. What do you make of this tweet? Because also you could argue that this is a political attack on her because she was talking about Russian interference with the 2016 election, something President Trump doesn’t like discussed.

JAMES RISEN: Well, first of all, Donald Trump is a psycho and shouldn’t be president. He’s crazy. And so he tweets in the middle of the night about stuff he knows nothing about, every day. So you have to discount this because of that.

But he is correct that there is a double standard. It’s just not a double standard with Hillary Clinton. The double standard is that low-level people in the intelligence community are the ones who are prosecuted, and not high-level people. If you look at the—the real double standard here is between the way the Justice Department dealt with someone like David Petraeus, who was the CIA director, who leaked lots of information to his former mistress and then was never sent to jail and was given probation, and the way that they’ve—this draconian sentence against Reality Winner, which is an absurd double standard. That’s the real double standard.

The other thing I would say is that the thing that Trump doesn’t want to admit is that he has politicized the Justice Department to such a degree that the two of the first three prosecutions of whistleblowers under his administration are about leaks of information about the Trump and Russia case, both in this case, which involved the Russian—the investigation of Russian election meddling, and in the case of Jim Wolfe, the Senate intelligence security officer who has been charged with allegedly leaking information about Carter Page and the Russia investigation. So, two out of three investigations are about matters that directly relate to Donald Trump and his campaign. And so I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Justice Department has been highly politicized already on these kind of cases.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you have Trump tweeting this comment about Reality Winner, talking about a double standard, and then you have the fact that Trump could pardon her. In fact, once he tweeted this, this was the response in social media, talking about—saying, “OK, pardon her.” How likely is this?

JAMES RISEN: Well, I think that would be great. I mean, that would show a level of mercy that we haven’t seen from Donald Trump. But I think that would be great if he does that. She shouldn’t be in jail in the first place. What she did was a public service. So, anything that can be done to help her, I’m all for.

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin Gosztola, you wrote a long piece earlier this week about how the government tried to break Reality’s spirit. Can you explain?

KEVIN GOSZTOLA: [inaudible] when she was arrested, the FBI agents backed her into a corner in a back room of her home. They coerced a confession from her. They didn’t read her her Miranda rights. She then, from that point, was immediately put under this model where you treat a person not like they’re a leaker, not like they’re someone who spoke to the press, but like they’re a terrorist. She was denied bond immediately. The prosecutors were lying. They fabricated claims based on alleged conversations between Reality Winner and her family members. They took texts out of context. It’s important to note that that phrase about hating America came from a joke. And so, if we believe in freedom of speech or if we believe in reason, they were deliberately misinterpreting or lying about her views toward America. They made her as if she was somebody who was a Taliban sympathizer who wanted to go abroad and help people in the Middle East who would like to do this country harm. They took her Air Force service and turned it into something that was a negative aspect of her, and they used it to justify keeping her in prison and denying her bail, even though she committed a nonviolent offense. And there are people who have committed violent crimes who do not go to jail before they are convicted.

From that point onward, she was kept in a county jail in Lincolnton County, and there she suffered an assault by a state inmate. She’s a federal inmate. So she had to take this and lie down in the fetal position, and she couldn’t fight back, because she didn’t want any additional charges to be added to her case. Onward, whenever she wanted to go to the courthouse to work on her case, as Reality’s mother has discussed, she was strip-searched, very arbitrarily, not necessarily because they had suspicion that she’s someone who would traffic contraband, but because that’s just the way in which they wanted to show they had control over Reality Winner. And so you put someone in a situation where you wear them down when it comes to working on their own defense. You make it impossible for them to get subpoenas to put together a valid defense. You make it impossible for someone to put on a public interest defense to argue why they released the leak, to put on any kind of whistleblower defense. And then, eventually, you get the person to a point where they accept a plea deal, because it’s much better than going to prison for 10 years. You’ll take five years with the possibility of getting out of jail soon.

AMY GOODMAN: As you to listen to that description, your comments? And also, talk about how this relates to your being head of the First Look Media’s Press Freedom Defense Fund.

JAMES RISEN: Well, we at the Press Freedom Fund, we’ve been very proud to help fund Reality’s legal defense. It’s one of the first cases that we’ve funded since I took over the fund last fall. And I think it’s a real good case for—of press freedom, because what she did, or what she is alleged to have done, as I said earlier, is a public service. And it really was one of the few moments in the last year and a half where the American people got a clear warning that their election systems were being hacked by the Russians. It was no longer just a hack of the Democratic committee’s emails; this was a direct hack of the American election system. The Russians were attempting to change voting patterns by getting into voting machines. And the United States government had failed to adequately warn anyone that that was going on, until this document was released. The idea that that is somehow a bad thing is ridiculous. It shows you how absurd and Kafkaesque this entire prosecution has become. And so, we’ve been very proud to help pay her legal defense.

AMY GOODMAN: Has this case changed the way The Intercept receives documents? And explain what she pled to. She mailed a document—she had said this is the case, is that right—to The Intercept?

JAMES RISEN: I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you there. Sorry.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what Reality Winner has pled to. She said she mailed a document to The Intercept, that she had access to as an NSA contractor with this corporation, Pluribus—I think it’s called Pluribus International Corporation—

JAMES RISEN: Right, right.

AMY GOODMAN: —in Augusta.

JAMES RISEN: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: And has it changed how The Intercept receives and then reveals documents, having placed that document then online, The Intercept did?

JAMES RISEN: Well, I think—I can’t really discuss how we handle things internally. But I think it’s safe to say that this has been an important—this was important for us, because it really, as I said, was an important and great story. I think the idea that The Intercept—we receive, actually, quite a bit of anonymous information, and we continue to receive a lot of documents and other information from a number of sources anonymously and from people who are named. And so, we’re going to continue to always try to deal with that in the best way possible. And I think we have a—as you mentioned earlier, I just came from The New York Times last year, and I can tell you that The Intercept handles material that is sensitive, that comes from sources, as well as any other news organization in the United States, and has a very high standard for the way in which they handle internal security on such sensitive matters, and will continue to do so.

AMY GOODMAN: Jim, you yourself were subpoenaed, not under the Trump administration, but under the Obama administration. Can you just explain your own case—because even as you were reporting and winning a Pulitzer Prize on covering the Obama administration, they were going after you—and how that resolved?

JAMES RISEN: Yeah. I mean, actually, I was first subpoenaed by the Bush administration, and then the Obama administration continued it and got new subpoenas. I was first subpoenaed in a grand jury—for a grand jury, to testify about sources for my book State of War, that came out in 2006. And I was subpoenaed in 2008 by the Bush administration to testify before a grand jury. And then the Obama administration renewed that subpoena, and the judge quashed it—actually, quashed two grand jury subpoenas. And then they subpoenaed me to testify at a trial in—later, after, in that same case, and that subpoena was quashed by the judge.

But the Obama administration appealed that to the appeals court. And in their appeal, they wrote a brief saying that there was no such thing as a reporter’s privilege, which meant that they believed there was no legal right for a reporter not to be forced to testify about their sources. And the court of appeals agreed with the Obama administration on that. And then I took the case to the Supreme Court, because—and the Supreme Court refused to take the case. And then, in 2015, I was—I had to appear at a pretrial hearing to determine whether or not I was going to testify or not. And I said I would not. And the Obama administration, at the last minute, backed off and decided not to send me to jail. And so the case ended at that point.
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/24/ ... entence_is



Whistleblower Gets Long Sentence for Leaking Evidence of Russian Election Interference

Reality Winner

Reality Winner, an Air Force veteran and former NSA contractor, was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison Thursday after pleading guilty to violating the Espionage Act of 1917.

Whistleblower advocates condemned the sentence and its length as “shameful,” while President Donald Trump used the case to take a swipe at his political rival, Hillary Clinton, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Winner was accused of leaking to the Intercept a document about Russian military officers attempting to hack an American election software company. She initially pleaded not guilty, but changed her plea to guilty last month.

Public scrutiny and accusations that the Intercept failed to protect its source when publishing the report led the organization to do an internal review of its procedures. Soon thereafter, Intercept Editor-in-Chief Betsy Reed acknowledged failures on their part.

“At several points in the editorial process, our practices fell short of the standards to which we hold ourselves for minimizing the risks of source exposure when handling anonymously provided materials,” Reed said.

The Intercept has since helped fund Winner’s legal defense through the campaign Stand With Reality.

A judge denied bail for Winner after prosecutors argued she was a flight risk and could leak more documents, the Associated Press reported.

Winner served in a US Air Force intelligence squadron from 2010 to 2016, according to her military file; there she learned languages native to the Middle East, including Farsi, Dari, and Pashto. She received numerous decorations and medals including the Air Force Commendation Medal.

Reality Winner, memes
#FreeRealityWinner! memes published on standwithreality.org. Photo credit: standwithreality.org

When she discovered the report, Winner had only been working for NSA contractor, Pluribus International Corporation of Augusta, GA, for a few months. The document showed that the NSA believed that members of Russian intelligence agency GRU attempted to compromise “multiple US state or local electoral boards.”

The operation involved sending emails pretending to be from VR Systems — a Florida-based voting equipment manufacturer with contracts in multiple states — to email addresses associated with local election offices including Florida and North Carolina. Some of the emails contained Word documents with malicious phishing code in them. It is unclear if anyone opened the emails or the documents.

In an interview with the FBI, Winner appears to suggest that she felt the findings of the document needed to be part of the public discussion of whether members of the Russian government interfered in the election, according to a redacted transcription of the interview published by Politico.

“Seeing that [information] that had been contested back and forth in the public domain for so long, trying to figure out, like, with everything else that keeps getting released and keeps getting leaked — why isn’t this getting — why isn’t this out there? Why can’t this be public?” Winner said.

“I saw the article and was like, I don’t understand why this isn’t a thing,” she added. “I guess I just didn’t care about myself at that point.”

Winner was arrested and charged with violating the Espionage Act, the same law that Chelsea Manning was charged and prosecuted under.

Whistleblower advocates have argued that the World War I-era law has been overused in the 21st century to prosecute whistleblowers and discourage others from coming forward. They say the information in the leaked material is in the public interest and that it should be public.

Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation said,

Reality Winner is a whistleblower who alerted the public about a critical threat to election security. It is a travesty that the Justice Department continues to prosecute sources of journalists under the Espionage Act, a statute meant for spies that doesn’t allow for a public interest defense. Winner performed a public service by alerting the public and state officials to dangerous vulnerabilities in election infrastructure, and it’s shameful the Justice Department would seek any prison time for her doing so — let alone the longest sentence for such an act in history.

Timm co-founded the “Stand with Reality” campaign; the Freedom of the Press Foundation also receives funding from the Intercept’s parent company, First Look Media.

Trump, who is usually critical of leaks to the media, tweeted about Winner Friday morning and described her actions as “‘small potatoes’ compared to what Hillary Clinton did.”


Last month, special counsel Robert Mueller announced and published the indictment of 12 Russian military officers that appears to rely on the same conclusion reached by the document Winner leaked: that Russian military intelligence officials tried to compromise US elections.

https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/08/24/whist ... erference/
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby American Dream » Thu Sep 13, 2018 9:47 am

Whistleblower Reality Winner, who leaked NSA documents revealing Russian interference in the 2016 elections, was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison, a term that prosecutors bragged was the “stiffest in history.” This vicious and appalling sentence went almost unnoticed on the editorial pages of the 350 newspapers who chastised the Trump administration for calling the press the “enemy of the people.” And shame on much of the Sputnik Left for staying silent about the Winner case because her disclosures didn’t fit their own fragile narrative about the 2016 elections…

Image

Roaming Charges: Waiting for My Man, by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Sep 13, 2018 11:26 am

.

Aaron Maté interviews James Risen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzR0NkJulwI

Transcript:
What Does The Intercept’s NSA Leak Say About Russian Vote Hacking?
https://therealnews.com/stories/what-do ... te-hacking

Commentary:
Aaron Maté is a Beast!
BY STEPHEN BONI ON SEPTEMBER 12, 2018
https://ghionjournal.com/aaron-mate-is-a-beast/
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

TopSecret WallSt. Iraq & more
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Sep 26, 2018 2:27 pm

NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Was Held in Isolation for a Week and No One Has Explained Why

Taylor Barnes
September 26 2018, 7:45 a.m.
National Security Agency whistleblower Reality Winner was kept in isolation for a week in a Florida county jail, a move that left her “hysterical,” according to an advocate who visited her in the facility. On Monday, Winner was moved from her isolated cell into the jail’s general population, according to advocates.

Charged under the Espionage Act and facing up to 10 years in prison, Winner, a 26-year-old former defense contractor and Air Force veteran, pleaded guilty in June to retaining and transmitting a document to a news organization. On her way to serve out the remainder of the five-year term spelled out in the plea deal, she was transferred in the middle of the night a week ago from the small rural county jail in Georgia where she has spent more than a year in custody. But, rather than being sent to a federal facility for processing, she was taken to yet another county jail in Florida for reasons that remain unclear.

At Baker County jail in Macclenny, Florida — a facility that also holds immigrant detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — Winner was kept alone in what appeared to be a booking cell, according to the advocate who visited her, Wendy Meer.

“She’s having anxiety attacks. … It was just so detrimental to her health and made her feel like she was just thrown away.”
The isolation was particularly distressing for Winner who, just last month, received an endorsement from a federal judge to serve her remaining prison sentence at a federal medical facility to treat her mental illnesses, which she told a courtroom include depression and bulimia.

“She’s having anxiety attacks. She was having panic attacks, and she really had been doing so well not having those,” said Meer, an activist who often campaigns for Winner alongside her family. “It was just so detrimental to her health and made her feel like she was just thrown away.”

Winner’s mother, Billie Winner-Davis, said, “She had tried to get a hold of me frantically and when she finally did get a hold of me, yes, she was on the edge. She was so upset.”

The 63-month sentence Winner received in August after reaching a plea bargain with the government is, according to prosecutors, the longest handed down by a federal court to a journalist’s source charged under the Espionage Act. The law itself is a piece of World War I-era legislation used in recent years to send journalistic sources to prison even as comparable defendants get probation for “mishandling classified information.”

Winner was widely reported to be the source for a June 2016 article in The Intercept on an NSA report detailing phishing attacks by Russian military intelligence on local U.S. election officials. The Intercept received the document anonymously and has said that it does not know who sent it. (The Intercept’s parent company First Look Media has contributed to Winner’s legal defense fund since learning of her arrest.)

During her week at the Baker County jail, Winner received meals in Styrofoam boxes through her door, according to Meer, who added that Winner’s personal belongings, including her Bible, were taken away from her.

“None of us understand this. Why this type of facility? It was just the weirdest.”
Meer said that Winner’s family and advocates had no information on why she was held in isolation or whether a transportation issue prevented her from moving to her final prison placement after her sentencing in late August. “None of us understand this,” said Meer. “Why this type of facility? It was just the weirdest.”

The Baker County jail referred The Intercept to the U.S. Marshals for questions on Winner’s detention there. Lynzey Donahue, a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service, said that “all we can do is verify that someone is in our custody,” declining to offer any comments on Winner’s current facility. Winner’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/26/rea ... isolation/
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun Oct 07, 2018 11:46 am

Reality Winner Claims Bureau Of Prisons Is Mishandling Classified Information By Sharing With Guards

NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner. Photo via StandWithReality.org.
One of the main reasons former NSA contractor Reality Winner accepted a plea deal was that the government would never allow her defense team to declassify certain classified information and present those details to a jury. Yet, days ago, as she was about to be transported to a county jail, some of that classified information was lying out in the open with no markings whatsoever.

Winner was charged with violating the Espionage Act after she mailed a copy of a classified report from the NSA on alleged Russian hacking of voter registration systems to the Intercept. She accepted a plea deal on June 26 and was sentenced to five years and three months in prison on August 23, which was the longest sentence ever for a person accused of an unauthorized disclosure.

She was detained at the Lincolnton County Detention Center for well over a year and was supposed to be at Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, by the end of September. But the Federal Bureau of Prisons has yet to process Winner and send her to Carswell.

Winner arrived at a federal transfer center in Oklahoma City, where she expected to be processed before she was moved to Carswell. However, the BOP was apparently not ready for her so she was put in a transport vehicle and taken to Grady County Jail in Chickasha, Oklahoma.

When Winner arrived at the county jail, Winner noticed a document. “It was kind of left on the desk, and I was waiting for them to get my clothes. I noticed one of the dudes that we were traveling with. He had a security profile that was elevated, and it explained very, very briefly three prior escape attempts.”

“I started reading down more of the names, and I saw my name at the bottom and I had this whole little subparagraph under my name,” Winner recalled. “Basically, it said broad publicity, and then it went into the leak and what the leak was about and these are things, country names that my lawyers aren’t even allowed to say anymore.”

“Here it was on this government document. [It] didn’t even have any kinds of heading,” Winner added. “What does this have to do regarding me being transported? It’s not like they’re going to search my bra and then a whole ream of paper is going to fly out. It’s just absolutely ridiculous that my information like that would have to be on that sheet along with somebody else who needed consideration because they tried to escape three times.”

As Winner suggested, the whole point was [her case] did not go to trial because “that one sentence right there could not be told to a jury and be made public.” She said, “I don’t understand why that was there or [why] they felt the need to do that.”

None of the officers handling this document had security clearances. They were correctional officers at the county jail. They weren’t from the U.S. Marshal’s Office.

Winner was concerned about correctional officers reading sensitive information about her case because they may not understand the description containing classified details. It could also expose her to retaliation from officers if they disagreed with her politically and thought she was part of some liberal effort to take down President Donald Trump.

“Everybody thinks that I’m a spy or that I sold secrets to another country,” Winner claimed. “For me, I’m like, who is saying this bullshit because that’s not it at all? You see that on that paper and what’s being spread and certainly this can’t be authorized.”

“I know that one of the guards was not even sure if I was even allowed to make any kind of phone calls or have any visitation. So I had to wait until his shift was over and then ask the next shift if I could make a phone call. Of course, I was able to. I spent an hour on the phone that night. It was no problem,” she added.

“It does affect the way I’m treated. You know, different officers have different rules regarding my privileges based on those sentences on that paper.”

Winner was flown to Oklahoma City from a federal holding facility in Atlanta. Authorities flew her to Atlanta from the Baker County Detention Center in Macclenny, Florida, which is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility.

While imprisoned at the ICE facility, Winner was kept in isolation for one week. She was released into the general population before authorities shipped her to Atlanta.

Winner recalled begging a lieutenant to let her into general population. According to Winner, “The lieutenant said things like we’re not doing this because we want to restrict you but we do worry about your safety because your high-profile. We don’t know how people react. It’s ridiculous because nobody in these jails—very few people even know my name or why I’m here. I don’t even go by my name.”

John Kiriakou, who was the first member of the CIA to publicly acknowledge that torture was official United States policy under President George W. Bush’s administration, pled guilty to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) when he confirmed the name of an officer involved in the CIA’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation (RDI) program to a reporter.

He was sentenced in January 2013, and reported to a prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania, on February 28, 2013. He was released on February 3, 2015.

While in prison, the Bureau of Prisons placed what is called a “greatest severity” public safety factor on his name. Officials wrongly interpreted his crime as one that involved “espionage, treason, or other related offenses.” He was imprisoned with people guilty of arson, robbery, drug offenses, sexual offenses, etc. This included people from the mafia.

The Bureau of Prisons does not distinguish between mishandling or leaking “national defense information” and committing the more severe offense of “espionage.” That appears to be what is happening in Winner’s case.

Kiriakou, who has supported Winner, said this document Winner saw shows the information was “improperly classified in the first place. It was not truly classified information. It had nothing to do with sources and methods, and it caused no harm to national security. It’s just that they wanted to make an example of her to frighten off any other would-be whistleblowers.”

“They’ve proven that by releasing the same information to uncleared—in some cases, unclearable individuals in the Bureau of Prisons,” Kiriakou asserted. “If the information that she was not allowed to say in court was truly sensitive, truly classified, it would never have been communicated to the Bureau of Prisons.”

The details that Winner says were on this desk for anyone passing by to read involve information that Winner can never talk about with any journalist. If she talks about these details, it will expose her to potential re-prosecution. The government could revoke her plea deal.

In a previous interview, Titus Nichols, who was part of Winner’s defense team, described how difficult it is to defend someone accused of violating the Espionage Act.

“You have to get permission to discuss a classified document or discuss something that might not itself be classified but when combined with another fact would appear to be classified,” Nichols said. “There’s all these restrictions that you have that you ordinarily wouldn’t have. There’s a gap between the Espionage Act, and it completely protecting someone’s Fourth, Fifth, [or] Sixth Amendment rights in regards to criminal prosecution.”

Winner expects to be at Grady County Jail until at least October 9, and then she is likely to be moved to the federal facility, where she will serve the bulk of her sentence.
https://shadowproof.com/2018/10/06/real ... ng-guards/
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Mar 08, 2019 10:23 am

My Daughter Reality Winner Faced Severe Punishment, but Key Figures in the Trump-Russia Scandal Are Getting Off Easy

Billie Winner-Davis
December 23 2018, 6:45 a.m.
Billie Winner-Davis, mother of Reality Winner, carries a sign in support of her daughter outside the Lincoln County Law Enforcement Center in Lincolnton, Ga., Sunday evening June 3, 2018. Winner-Davis and other supporters gathered outside the jail a year after Reality Winner's arrest. Winner worked for the national security contractor Pluribus International at Fort Gordon in Georgia when she was charged last June with mailing a classified U.S. report to an unidentified news organization. (Michael Holahan/The Augusta Chronicle via AP) Billie Winner-Davis, mother of Reality Winner, carries a sign in support of her daughter outside the Lincoln County Law Enforcement Center in Lincolnton, Ga., on June 3, 2018. Photo: Michael Holahan/The Augusta Chronicle/AP
LET ME INTRODUCE myself. I am the mother of Reality Leigh Winner, a 27-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran who is in prison for leaking a document with proof of Russian election hacking efforts. I am writing now because I am outraged: While my daughter languishes in prison, those actually responsible for threatening our election continue to get off easy.

My daughter was sentenced to five years in prison for releasing a single document from the National Security Agency with proof of a threat to our voting system, when no one else would give the public the truth. She was widely reported to be the source for a June 2016 article in The Intercept on an NSA report detailing phishing attacks by Russian military intelligence on local U.S. election officials. (The Intercept has said it received the document anonymously.)

Her conviction wrongly portrayed her as a traitor and spy. To give the public proof of a threat to our nation, Reality violated her contract and nondisclosure agreement (she worked for a company that performed work for the NSA), and may have violated the law. She did so at a time when Russian interference in our 2016 presidential election was being hidden and downplayed.

Those who actually played roles in the malfeasance surrounding the Trump campaign and transition do not appear to be paying near the price that Reality Winner is.
She certainly should be held accountable for her actions, and she is. But other figures in the news today — those who actually played roles in the malfeasance surrounding the Trump campaign and transition — do not appear to be paying near the price that she and our family are paying.

Reality was just 25 years old when she was charged with the unlawful disclosure of national defense information, a charge under the Espionage Act of 1917. She was denied bond by the judge, as her distinguished military experience, service to her community, and intelligence was used against her. The government painted her as a Taliban sympathizer and a threat to the U.S., even though her service and medal of commendation directly contradicted this. The government, arguing that she was a flight risk, used her savings of $30,000 against her. They used her one and only trip out of the country, a trip to Belize to honor her deceased father, against her. They used her language skills — taught to her during and used for her military service — against her. They used her social media posts and a single doodled joke, in one of her many journals, against her.

Even though the prosecution made false statements to keep her jailed — saying that she had multiple classified documents in her possession — the judge accepted their apologies and still kept her locked away in deplorable conditions. She was deprived of contact with her family and friends, she was deprived of an adequate diet and nutrition, her mental health needs were ignored by the system, she was assaulted and injured, and deprived of fresh air and sunlight and basic needs. The government knew what to do to break her and they did.

In June 2018, Reality pleaded guilty to the one charge against her, in a deal that resulted in the longest-ever sentence imposed for a crime along these lines. Although Reality’s legal team did their best to build a defense for her, the court ruled against them at every turn, and the threat of 10 years in prison and hefty fines if she didn’t prevail at trial became too much to battle against.

Despite having a spotless record, distinguished military service, documented volunteerism, and service to her community, the government’s sentencing memo again portrayed Reality as an enemy of the country. On August 23, 2018, the court sentenced Reality to 63 months in prison and three years of supervised release. In a press release, U.S. Attorney Bobby Christine stated that resolving the case with this plea agreement was the best resolution, as a trial may risk the further disclosure of classified information. He said that the sentence imposed on Reality “promotes respect for the law and affords deterrence to similar criminal conduct in the future” — using Reality as the example. He referred to her as a “quintessential example of an insider threat.”

Billie-and-Re-_655x498_bigger-1545260811 Billie Winner-Davis with her daughter, Reality Winner. Photo: Courtesy of Billie Winner-Davis
REALITY’S CASE, TREATMENT, and sentence are more than enough to stoke my outrage, but every day, I become angrier and more frustrated with the news. The facts of the entire investigation into Russian election interference — a saga of greed — are heartbreaking. It is maddening to watch my daughter in prison as the so-called justice system interacts in such drastically different ways with Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn, and Michael Cohen.

First, Manafort and Gates. In February 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller handed down 32 indictments on these two men, to include conspiracy and numerous tax evasion crimes. Gate’s fate is not yet known, but we do know that he has not spent time languishing in a jail or prison after he was charged, unlike Reality, who is now on day TKTK behind bars.

Then Manafort. Despite having the financial means, connections, multiple passports, and experience traveling to other countries — at levels that far exceeded Reality’s — Manafort was allowed to remain out of jail on bond. Manafort’s bond was revoked only when he was accused of tampering with witnesses, and even then he seemed to be getting preferential treatment — until a judge transferred him to a “real” jail. Manafort was convicted of eight crimes and then entered into a plea agreement in another case. That plea was later revoked, after he was accused of lying to prosecutors.

Last year, on December 18, 2017, as the court allowed Manafort to travel to the Hamptons to celebrate Christmas, our family celebrated that Reality had been given fresh fruit, a gift from a local church, and the very first fresh anything since her arrest on June 3, 2017.

Next comes Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI concerning his contacts, during the presidential campaign, with people he believed had connections to the Russian government. He was sentenced to a total of 14 days in prison — and even then tried to get this sentence postponed before spending a mere 12 days incarcerated. What I wouldn’t give to even have Reality released after 12 months.

On to Flynn’s case. A retired Army general, revered and entrusted due to his experience and rank, and put in charge of our national security, Flynn lied about work he did on behalf of the Turkish government, as well as his backchannel communications with the Russian government prior to Donald Trump’s inauguration. He worked for Turkey to try to send a legal U.S. resident, a dissident Turkish preacher, back to Turkey, knowing that this would place the preacher in danger. And Flynn communicated with the Russian government about sanctions placed on them for interfering in the U.S. elections. This Army general should have been facing some very serious charges and consequences, but what is he charged with? Not conspiracy, not espionage — but lying to FBI agents. And, if that does not cause one to gasp, the government is not seeking any prison time! Just this week, Flynn was dressed down by a judge who expressed his “disgust” for the former general’s conduct — but there’s little indication that he’ll receive a hefty sentence.

While I realize that the crime of lying to the FBI may not automatically qualify one for a prison sentence, my outrage on Flynn’s case centers more on what he was not charged with. I would have thought that someone of his rank and position within our government, someone who lied about the lucrative work he had done for one foreign government and contacts with another, would be held to a much higher standard than a 25-year-old veteran airman. Reality is described as an “insider threat” — one who “plainly abused her position of trust” — yet Flynn’s sentencing memos and recommendations paint him in a much better light, resulting in requests for extreme leniency that the judge found so hard to swallow.

Reality Winner, charged with leaking U.S. secrets to a news outlet, walks into the Federal Courthouse in Augusta, Ga., Tuesday, June 26, 2018. (Michael Holahan/The Augusta Chronicle via AP) Reality Winner, charged with leaking U.S. secrets to a news outlet, walks into the Federal Courthouse in Augusta, Ga., on June 26, 2018. Photo: Michael Holahan/The Augusta Chronicle/AP
Michael Cohen is next. Cohen acted on behalf of Trump’s presidential campaign and also as his personal lawyer. He arranged what prosecutors said were illegal payments to two women alleged to have had affairs and sexual encounters with Trump. This was done during the campaign to hush the women as their stories were sure to bring negative attention to then-candidate Trump — which also made the payment a violation of federal laws relating to campaign finance.

Cohen was also charged with other crimes — nine total — to include tax evasion and lying to Congress. He pleaded guilty to all those charges and was sentenced to a total of three years in prison with three years’ supervised released. He will not have to surrender himself to begin his prison term until March. It’s difficult to conclude anything other than that Cohen lined his pockets and betrayed our democracy for selfish reasons.

Last, but perhaps not least, in this unfolding tale is Maria Butina, a Russian operative who was arrested for conspiracy to commit crimes against the United States. Though she was not charged as part of the Trump-Russia probe, Butina inserted herself into the National Rifle Association and ran in the top circles of power in U.S. politics. She was said to be facilitating backchannel communications between our leaders and Russia. Butina, at this time, was actively working against the United States.

Last week, she pleaded guilty to a crime of working as a foreign agent in the U.S. She was not charged with and will not be convicted of espionage. Let that sink in. My daughter Reality, who blew the whistle on Russian efforts to attack our election, is the traitor, the one guilty of espionage — but not a Russian agent and those working with her.

I totally understand the need for prosecutors to work with defendants to secure cooperation; incentives are certainly necessary. However, when you consider what this means for those without power or position, like Reality, it is also unjust. Treating Reality as an insider threat and using her and her sentence as a deterrent for others, yet allowing the likes of Cohen, Flynn, Gates, and Butina off easy for much more serious offenses undermines our entire system. It sends the clear message that if you are poor and powerless in this system, you will be abused.

I am outraged. I hope you are too.

The Intercept’s parent company First Look Media Works has contributed to Reality Winner’s legal defense.
https://theintercept.com/2018/12/23/rea ... mp-russia/
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Mar 08, 2019 10:37 am

‘The World’s Biggest Terrorist Has a Pikachu Bedspread’

Kerry Howley
Reality Winner grew up in a carefully kept manufactured home on the edge of a cattle farm 100 miles north of the Mexican border in a majority-Latino town where her mother, Billie, still lives. From the back porch, a carpet of green meets the horizon, and when a neighbor shoots a gun for target practice, a half-dozen local dogs run under the trailer to hide. Billie worked for Child Protective Services, and in Ricardo, Texas, the steady income made her daughters feel well-off; the fact that they had a dishwasher seemed evidence of elevated social standing. Billie, a chatty redhead with the high-pitched voice of a doll, supported the family while her husband, Ronald, she says, “collected degrees.” It was Ronald who named Reality. The deal had been that Billie got to name their first — Brittany — but their second was his to choose. He noticed, on a T-shirt at their Lamaze class, the words I COACHED A REAL WINNER. He wanted a success story and felt that an aspirational name would increase his chances of producing one. Billie did not object; a deal is a deal.

Ronald was intellectually engaged, though never, during his marriage, employed, and Reality’s parents separated in 1999, when she was 8. Two years later, when the Towers fell, Ronald held long, intense conversations about geopolitics with his daughters. He was careful to distinguish for them the religion of Islam from the ideologies that fueled terrorism. “I learned,” says Reality, “that the fastest route to conflict resolution is understanding.” She credits her father with her interest in Arabic, which she began studying seriously, outside school and of her own accord, at 17. It was this interest in languages that eventually drew her into a security state, unimaginable before 9/11, that she chose to betray. Fifteen years after those first conversations with her father, Reality’s interest in Arabic would be turned against her in a Georgia courtroom, taken as evidence that she sympathized with the nation’s most feared enemies.

Reality was an almost comically mature adolescent, intellectually adept, impatient with her peers, with a compulsive drive to improve herself she would eventually channel into an obsession with nutrition and exercise. Her body was strong and substantial and unadorned: thin blonde hair tied up, no makeup, clothes that suggested a lack of interest in the act of dressing. She was shy and shyly mischievous. In the eighth grade, she organized a food fight so intense that she was banned from walking during graduation, though her mother points out that she was careful not to schedule it during spaghetti day, when it would have been especially messy.

Reality agreed to date her high-school boyfriend, Carlos, on certain conditions intended to improve and to edify. Carlos, who was failing out of school and broke, had to read a particular number of books a week. He had to maintain at least a C average. He had to get a job. He did not have clothes suitable for employment, but Reality would work on that; she had her mother take Carlos shopping for khakis and a polo. “Reality takes in a lot of strays,” says her mother with a sigh, “and I don’t mean just animals.”

She was a talented, stylish painter, and her most frequent subjects were herself, Nelson Mandela, and Jesus. She was an inveterate smasher of phones. She threw one across the room while talking to her father, who struggled with an addiction to painkillers and who she sensed was stoned, and cracked another one falling from a tree she’d climbed in a fit of whimsy. A third phone met its fate when it simply wasn’t working. “How hard is it to be a phone?” she yelled, threw it, smashed it.

Reality was raised six miles from a naval base, in a household where humanitarian and military motives were not taken to be in tension, at a moment, just after 9/11, when the country had mostly unambivalent feelings about the moral might of its armed forces. “What could be more humanitarian,” Billie asks, “than protecting your country and innocent victims of war and terrorism?” As an adolescent, Billie had dreamed of joining the Air Force herself but ended up advocating for abused and neglected children as a social worker. During Reality’s senior year, an Army recruiter came to her high school and zeroed in on her as a smart, athletic potential recruit. He took her out to lunch at a Kingsville Whataburger multiple times a week, for several weeks, until she agreed to take an assessment test.

No one was surprised when Reality’s sister, Brittany, went on to college, absurd amounts of college, such that she walked out of Michigan State with a Ph.D. in pharmacology and toxicology last year. But Reality had then, and has now, a skepticism of academic degrees, which she recently described to me as “hundred-thousand-dollar pieces of paper that say you’ve never had a job.” (“It’s interesting,” her mother notes, “because of her father?”) She wanted her life to start. She wanted to make the biggest difference she could, as soon as she could. It wasn’t until she was getting on the bus for basic training that she told her mother she’d applied to engineering school at Texas A&M–Kingsville, received a full scholarship, and turned it down.

Based on her test scores, Reality was selected to be a cryptolinguist, which is to say she was tapped to help the military eavesdrop on people speaking languages other than English. She wanted Arabic, but the ones assigned to her were Dari and Farsi — languages of use to a military vacuuming up conversations from Afghanistan and Iran. She would spend two years becoming fluent and another year in intelligence training before she was sent to Maryland’s Fort Meade. Along the way, she’d be one of a few students admitted to a selective program in Pashto, yet another language in which she would become fluent.

In Maryland, her life, according to those closest to her, involved an exceptionally punishing exercise regimen, volunteer work, and 12-hour shifts listening to the private conversations of men and women thousands of miles away. There was also anxiety. Reality worried about global warming. She worried about Syrian children. She worried about famine and poverty all over the globe. Highly critical of her carbon-spewing, famine-ignoring fellow citizens, she nevertheless thought her humanitarian impulses were compatible with the military’s mission, and wished her fellow Airmen were not just more competent in their jobs but more motivated to do them well, to save the vulnerable from acts of terror.

To those around her, Reality was a never-ending, frequently exhausting source of information on the world, its problems, and our collective obligation to pay attention. She gave her sister a marked-up copy of the Koran, rife with Post-it notes, and told her to read it. With an organization called Athletes Serving Athletes, she pushed wheelchair-bound kids through half-marathons. (“Athletes Serving Athletes,” said her ex-boyfriend Matt Boyle. “She’d never shut up about that.”) She donated money to the White Helmets, a group of volunteers performing search-and-rescue missions deep in rebel-held Syria. She told those around her to watch 13th, a documentary about racial injustice in the prison system.

On Facebook, where she called herself Reezle Winner because the site had rejected her legal name, she friended her yoga instructor, Keith Golden. “I was like, Who the fuck is Reezle?” said Golden. Thereafter he called her “Diesel Reezle.” He had, as everyone around Reality did, the sense that she was an extremely competent linguist. “I’d say, ‘I bet you dominate that military shit, they fucking love you, don’t they?’ And she’d say, ‘Well, yeah, I’m good at my job.’ ”

What remained abstract and distant to the news-consuming public was neither abstract nor distant to Reality. “She was really, really passionate about Afghanistan and stopping ISIS,” says Golden. “We would go to lunch, and that’s pretty much all she would talk about. She was despondent that ISIS was the way that it was, that we can’t do anything to help the whole situation, that it’s so fucked up.”

The people closest to her did not know precisely what Airman Reality L. Winner did during her 12-hour shifts at Fort Meade. They only knew that there were certain days when she knew something big was coming and went to bed early. Reality told her mother that she might have PTSD. If she were to explain the nature of her work stress to a therapist, she would risk being charged with espionage. She exercised, and she journaled. She kept thick diaries full of small text, Post-it notes scrawled to the margins. She wrote down instructions, inspirational quotes, arguments she was having with herself. A couple of times a week, for hours at a time, she would talk to her father, whose health was failing but who was constantly watching the news. They discussed current events of concern to her, like the war in Syria.

Reality would later tell the FBI that she worked in the drone program; as a cryptolinguist, her job would likely have been to translate communications so that drone operators would know whom to target. “It was definitely traumatizing,” says Boyle. “You’re watching people die. You have U.S. troops on the ground getting shot at, you miss something, a bomb goes off, and you get three people killed.”

As a matter of record, she helped kill hundreds of people. A commendation she received in October 2016 praises her for “assisting in geolocating 120 enemy combatants during 734 airborne sorties.” She is commended for “removing more than 100 enemies from the battlefield.” She aided in 650 “enemy captures” and 600 “enemies killed in action.”

In January 2015, ISIS militants locked a 26-year-old Jordanian pilot in a cage, soaked him in gasoline, touched torch to fuel, and filmed him as he slowly burned alive. Reality was deeply upset and full of fury, as she often was, for the Islamic State. “Getting out of work,” she wrote in an email to Golden, “I felt such a rush of emotion that I had been suppressing throughout the shift. I could not escape, or allow myself to put aside thoughts about the Jordanian pilot … I spent hours playing mental chess with the world, who should strike first, hardest, what message should be sent, revenge, etc. … So on all fronts I just felt really helpless and overwhelmed. Naturally my thoughts had turned to yoga, because it is the means by which I can really understand and acknowledge powerful emotions and put them aside to gain more clarity and peace. But I didn’t want to just hide in asana and meditation because it made me feel good. In the pain I felt, I did not want the ‘moral’ to be compassion and forgiveness.”

Golden hadn’t even heard about the pilot. “I had to Google it,” he told me, “because I don’t really follow the news.”

Reality’s favorite part of the job was “saving lives,” but this was not, in the end, the way she wanted to save them. She wanted to do something humanitarian and directly so; she had thought the Air Force could make that possible by sending her abroad to places in need of her language skills and drive to help. In her daydreams, Reality passed shoe boxes full of toys to children in refugee camps in a war-torn country on Christmas morning. She knew that this was not realistic, that this was not what was needed, and she treated this dream with a wry, self-deprecating lightness. She gave what was actually needed: money to the Red Cross, donations to the White Helmets. Then she went back to work transcribing the tapped communications of suspected militants 7,000 miles away.

Disappointed that the Air Force was not sending linguists like her into the field, Reality began to look elsewhere for fulfilling work. She was honorably discharged in November 2016, at which point she applied for jobs with NGOs in Afghanistan, hoping to use her Pashto to actually talk to people — maybe refugees, maybe kids on Christmas morning. That same month, she began to test the boundaries of her oath to keep information secret. Reality says she wanted to know how her colleagues had uploaded personal photos onto their secure computers. She searched using the phrase “Do top secret computers detect when flash drives are inserted” and inserted a thumb drive. According to Reality, an admin box popped up. She didn’t have the password. She ejected the drive.

Reality’s search for work abroad was frustrating. Her nonmilitary education stopped at high school, which is perhaps why her applications went nowhere. “They want a degree to hand out blankets,” she told her mother. She was one of an infinitesimal number of Americans fluent in multiple Afghan languages, and yet she could not find a way to get out of an American office park.

During her years in the Air Force, Reality had, for a time, deployed to Fort Gordon, a base near Augusta, Georgia. After she was discharged, she got in her boxy, bumper-sticker-covered Nissan Cube (ADOPT! / MAKE AMERICA GREEN AGAIN! / YOU JUST GOT PASSED BY A TOASTER), packed her belongings — which included an AR-15, a Glock, and a 12-gauge shotgun — and moved back. She taught at a CrossFit place, a high-end boutique gym, and a yoga studio while she tried to find a way to go abroad. Months passed. Around this time, she downloaded a Tor, a browser that allows for anonymous communication. Reality says she was curious about WikiLeaks, about how it all worked. She opened it up at a Starbucks, checked out the site, and was underwhelmed. She closed it again.

Reality did not have a college degree, but she was one of 1.4 million Americans with Top Secret clearance, which is to say that she had something to sell. Contractors are sometimes called body shops, and the bodies they want are security-cleared, readily found on sites like clearedconnections.com, which Reality frequented. Augusta was full of contractors paying good money for cleared linguists, and Reality accepted a job with Pluribus International, a small operation owned by the son of a former CIA operative.

By December 2016, when Reality returned to Georgia, it was common for a certain class of educated and politically sophisticated people to refer to the “deep state,” a term that conjures dark-suited men self-satisfied in their grim capacity for discretion. This image fails to account for the fact that those 1.4 million hold top security clearance; that most of the intelligence budget now redounds to private contractors employing tens of thousands of middle-class Americans; that armies of security-cleared analysts are required to sift through all the data the state collects. If your definition of “deep state” cannot accommodate an idealistic 25-year-old CrossFit fanatic with unmatched socks, you’ve underestimated both the reach and scope of American surveillance.

To get to the second floor of the Whitelaw Building, where Reality Winner appears to have worked from February until June, she first had to drive into Fort Gordon, “Home of the U.S. Cyber Center of Excellence,” past low-slung brick buildings and uniformed military in formation, past massive satellite dishes behind barbed wire, toward the $286 million, 604,000-square-foot sleek white listening post that is NSA Georgia, gleaming and gently curved, surrounded by a parking lot full of the middle-class cars of working intelligence-industry professionals.

I took this drive in October, after I’d been given a visitor pass at the entrance to the Army base. I drove until I arrived at a building that looked like renderings I’d seen before and walked around feeling perfectly invisible. After five minutes or so, a black SUV pulled up with a police officer inside; she demanded my license. “Woman in a burgundy top” was the efficient way I had been identified in her notepad. Another SUV pulled up. The police officer called the men inside “special agents,” though when I asked a guy for his title, he declined to say. There were two officials, then three, then six, and they were “just trying to figure out what’s going on.” I asked a few times if I could leave and was told I could not in fact leave; I asked if I was under arrest and told no, this was “investigatory detention.” I was then turned over to a third jurisdictional authority, military police, who drove me off the base.

The Whitelaw Building is one of many facilities built all over the country with the government largesse produced by 9/11, in a decade when spending on intelligence more than doubled and the intelligence community, once concentrated in and around greater Washington, D.C., spilled over into places like St. Louis and Salt Lake and San Antonio. It is a pair of coordinates in the “alternative geography” described at length by Dana Priest and Bill Arkin in their 2010 “Top Secret America” series for the Washington Post, one small part of a huge, hidden world of mile-long business parks, unmarked city buildings, and ghost floors in bland suburban high-rises.

I only say I hate America three times a day. I’m no radical.
Surveillance requires surveillors; mass surveillance requires more of them. In 2011, according to a document leaked by Edward Snowden, the number of people who worked for the 16 agencies that the government considers to be part of the intelligence community was 104,905. But that number doesn’t include contractors, to which most intelligence funding — 70 percent, according to a PowerPoint leaked to investigative journalist Tim Shorrock — now accrues. Precisely how many Americans are involved in the country’s $70 billion intelligence project remains unknown, probably, even to members of the inner circle; senior officials marvel at its size and redundancy. The intelligence contractors Booz Allen Hamilton, CRSA, and SAIC each employ well over 15,000 people, and there are hundreds of smaller companies like the one for which Reality worked. A single Army research-laboratory contract inked in 2010 involved 11 “prime” contractors and 180 subcontractors. This contract, and these numbers, also come to us via leak.

With so many having access to so much, the fabric of secrecy is stretched thin, vulnerable to puncture. And so the Obama administration launched an unprecedented crackdown against whistle-blowers, charging more of them under the Espionage Act of 1917 than all previous administrations combined. To “detect and prevent” potential leakers, the Obama administration introduced something called “insider threat” training.

“What do insider threats look like?” asks a student guide prepared by the Center for Development of Security Excellence. “They look like you and me.”

Materials used for this training encourage employees to look out for co-workers who “display a general lack of respect for the United States.” The phrase “way of life” comes up frequently, as in “Through unauthorized disclosures … we all risk losing our way of life,” and “When you protect classified information you are protecting our nation’s security, along with the warfighters who defend our American way of life.”

Reality characterized her own insider-threat training as “five hours of bitching about Snowden.”

“I have to take a polygraph where they’re going to ask if I plotted against the government,” she messaged her sister in February. “#gonnafail.”

“Lol! Just convince yourself you are writing a novel.”

“Look, I only say I hate America three times a day. I’m no radical.”

Reality Winner would have been making the best money of her life at Pluribus, but she had never been particularly interested in what money can buy. She rented, sight unseen, an 800-square-foot house in a part of Augusta the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls “hardscrabble” and her ex-boyfriend calls “blighted”; her neighbors parked their cars on brown, patchy lawns. (“I did not look at a map when I signed the lease,” she’d later tell the FBI, “but I’m well armed.”) The rooms were filled with workout equipment, sneakers, and sticky notes on which were scrawled workout regimes (“Bench 5x5, Back Squat 5x5”) but also stray thoughts about issues with which she was preoccupied (“Peace-making is less of a rational-economic model of dividing resources and territory fairly”; “Further research: Deserts versus rainforest”). Months later, when her mother walked me through the house, she’d point to Reality’s room and say, “The world’s biggest terrorist has a Pikachu bedspread.”

Reality was searched for thumb drives and cell phones every morning as she walked into the Whitelaw Building; her lunch, security guards noted as they pawed through it, was very healthy. She translated Farsi in documents relating to Iran’s aerospace program, work for which she had no particular affinity and which seems to have bored her. For those mornings when she did not feel like reading more documents about Iran’s aerospace program, she evidently had access to documents well outside her area of expertise. She had access, for example, to a five-page classified report detailing a Russian attempt to access American election infrastructure through a private software company. This would be, ultimately, the document she leaked. According to the analysis in the report, Russian intelligence sent phishing emails to the employees of a company that provides election support to eight states. After obtaining log-in credentials, the Russians sent emails infected with malware to over 100 election officials, days before the election, from what looked like the software company’s address.

In November, the man Reality referred to as “orange fascist” became president of the United States. That fall, Reality and her then-boyfriend Matt Boyle stopped seeing one another, and four days before Christmas, her father died. Though she kept it to herself at the time, she would later tell her sister that she would cry for 30 minutes a day, every day, during the weeks after his death. (“That sounds like Reality,” says Boyle. “She would give herself exactly 30 minutes.”) “I lost my confidant,” she later wrote in a letter, “someone who believed in me, my anger, my heartbreak, my life-force. It was always us against the world … It was Christmastime and I had to go running to cry to hide it from the family. 2016 was the year I got really good at crying and running.”

Her father had always talked about going to Belize to see the ruins, and so she decided to go on a three-day trip in memory of him. She returned to a workplace at which she was increasingly unhappy. It bothered her that the screens at NSA Georgia were always tuned to Fox News, and it bothered her enough that she filed a formal complaint. In her free time, she sought out the staff of David Perdue, the U.S. senator from Georgia, and arranged a 30-minute meeting to discuss climate change and the Dakota Access Pipeline; on Facebook, she explained that she had drawn for Perdue’s staff “a parallel between the 2011 interview of President Bashar al Assad claiming utter ignorance of the human rights violations his citizens were protesting” and Trump’s claim that the White House had received no calls about the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In those first months on the job, the country was still adjusting to Trump, and it seemed possible to some people that he would be quickly impeached. Reality listened to a podcast called Intercepted, hosted by the left-wing anti-security-state website the Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill and featuring its public face, Glenn Greenwald, and listened intensely enough to email the Intercept and ask for a transcript of an episode. Scahill and Greenwald had been, and continue to be, cautious about accusations of Russian election meddling, which they foresee being used as a pretext for justifying U.S. militarism. “There is a tremendous amount of hysterics, a lot of theories, a lot of premature conclusions being drawn around all of this Russia stuff,” Scahill said on the podcast in March. “And there’s not a lot of hard evidence to back it up. There may be evidence, but it’s not here yet.”

There was evidence available to Reality.

The document was marked top secret, which is supposed to mean that its disclosure could “reasonably be expected” to cause “exceptionally grave damage” to the U.S. Sometimes, this is true. Reality would have known that, in releasing the document, she ran the risk of alerting the Russians to what the intelligence community knew, but it seemed to her that this specific account ought to be a matter of public discourse. Why isn’t this getting out there? she thought. Why can’t this be public? It was surprising to her that someone hadn’t already done it.

Those who criticize whistle-blowers often suggest that the offender ought to have followed a more “responsible” course — what Obama once called in his criticism of Snowden the “procedures and practices of the intelligence community.” There are reasons notorious leakers have stopped doing so, and those reasons involve a man named Thomas Drake. In 2002, Drake had concerns about a wasteful and unconstitutional $1 billion warrantless-wiretapping program later revealed to be among the worst and most expensive failures in the history of U.S. intelligence. He alerted the NSA’s general counsel, informed Diane Roark, a Republican staffer on the House Intelligence Committee in charge of NSA oversight, and, anonymously, informed congressional committees investigating the mistakes that led to 9/11. He alerted the inspector general of the Department of Defense, which launched an investigation. Colleagues warned him that he ought to stop. Eventually, the FBI raided Drake’s home and the Justice Department charged him with “willful retention of national defense information.” An assistant inspector general later claimed that the Pentagon was punishing Drake for whistle-blowing and had improperly destroyed material related to his defense. Drake lost his job, his pension, and his savings. His marriage fell apart. He now works at the Apple store in Bethesda, Maryland.

William Binney, a longtime NSA technical director, went to both the inspector general of the Department of Defense and Roark, with complaints about massive amounts of wasteful spending; the FBI raided his home, pointed a gun at him while he was in the shower, and revoked his security clearance. He was 63. (For good measure, they raided Roark’s house, too.)

Drake and Binney, among others, had attempted to work through the system, only to be retaliated against. But something shifted in 2010, when a 22-year-old private named Bradley Manning sent a trove of secrets straight to WikiLeaks. Snowden, 29, went to particular journalists he trusted (one of whom was Greenwald). These whistle-blowers spent far less time at their respective agencies or contractors and had considerably less faith that their superiors might be sensitive to their concerns. They were in their 20s, a time of great ideological foment for many intelligent people, and an age at which many are at their most ideologically rigid. Snowden and Manning were not career service people who had grown concerned with the way some work being done by colleagues violated the values of the institution in which they still believed, but newcomers — an IT contractor and a soldier — suddenly face-to-face with the whole system of American surveillance. And Snowden, in particular, knew exactly what happened to people who followed proper channels.

“The disclosure system, the whistle-blower system, the ability to bring wrongdoing and questions about policy, is fraught with corruption,” says Drake, who speaks mostly in a kind of outraged abstraction. “It does not protect the whistle-blower, the truth-teller. It’s designed to ferret them out and hammer them from within.”

For those inside the web of secrecy, that makes a bad mood on a bad day, a snap decision in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, potentially catastrophic.

The classified report on the Russian cyberattack was not a document for which Reality had a “need to know,” which is to say she wasn’t supposed to be reading it in her spare time, let alone printing it, and were she to print it for some reason, she was required to place it in a white slatted box called a “burn bag.”

Why do I have this job, Reality thought, if I’m just going to sit back and be helpless?

Reality folded up the document, stuffed it in her pantyhose, and walked out of the building, its sharp corners pressing into her skin. Later that day, President Trump fired James Comey, who had been leading an investigation into Russian election-meddling. Reality placed the document in an envelope without a return address and dropped it in a standing mailbox in a strip-mall parking lot. Court documents suggest she also sent a copy to another outlet, though which one we don’t know.

When the envelope first arrived at the Intercept, there was considerable doubt that the document within it was real. The reporters decided, per standard journalistic practice, to contact someone who could verify its authenticity. What is less standard — what Thomas Drake calls “abhorrent” and Tim Shorrock calls “just shameful” and investigative journalist Barton Gellman called “egregious” — is for a reporter to provide a copy of the document itself, which could help reveal precisely who had provided it. On May 30, according to court filings, an unnamed reporter sent pictures of the document to a contractor for the U.S. government and told the contractor that they’d been postmarked in Augusta. The contractor initially said that the documents were fake but, after checking with someone at the NSA, reported that they were real. (The Intercept declines to comment for this story, though its parent company is contributing to Reality’s defense.)

On June 5, under the headline “Top Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before 2016 Election” and bylined by four reporters, the Intercept published a scan of the leaked document with some redactions. The document it had incidentally given to the NSA — which had then sent it to the FBI — and which was now freely available on the internet, shows creases that suggest it was printed, folded, and carried, rather than submitted online. It contains watermarks indicating that it was printed on May 9, 2017, at 6:20 a.m., from a printer with the serial number 535218 or 29535218. The NSA knew, from its internal surveillance, that only six people had printed the document. Of those six, only one had emailed the Intercept asking for a transcript of a podcast.


Reality Winner exercising at the Lincoln County Detention Center in Lincoln, Georgia, on June 12. Photo: MGJR/SBMF/BACKGRID
Reality quickly confessed to the FBI agents who came to her home to get her, a confession she would later contest because she was not read her Miranda rights. As she awaited her bail hearing, she was held in the Lincoln County Detention Center, an afterthought of a holding cell in small-town Georgia. Seven other women, all of whom were there on drug offenses, passed their days alongside Reality in a single room stacked with bunk beds, loud with the blare of television. This would be the place Reality would have to await trial — a process that would take many months — if she were not granted bail at a preliminary detention hearing.

She called her sister and sounded terrified. “Oh, boy, Britty, I screwed up,” she said. “I don’t know if I’m getting out of this one … I just, I can’t even get over the little things, like I was supposed to teach yoga today, I was supposed to be on a date last night. I know it’s stupid, but that’s my whole life, that’s all I had—”

“It’s not stupid,” said Brittany, and pointed out that her husband’s first concern was that Reality would refuse to eat any of the jail food.

“I was like, ‘The only thing she eats is kale, so …’ ”

“I know, I feel absolutely terrible, there’s so much white bread here, I … I—”

“I’m sorry I’m laughing at you,” said Brittany, laughing.

They joked about Orange Is the New Black, and Reality, embarrassed but unable to shake the worry of obligation, asked her sister to arrange for a substitute for a cycling class she taught, then returned to feelings of hopelessness.

“I feel like I’m being a diva,” she said, “like there are freakin’ Syrian refugees that have nothing but still go from one day to the next.”

“I think it’s still going to be okay,” said Brittany.

“I didn’t think. I did not think of the consequences for even a second.”

“You’re going to get through this.”

“I keep telling myself to act more like I did something wrong,” said Reality, and laughed.

“Well, maybe you’re right,” said Brittany, “I don’t mean to discount the effect of being pretty and white and blonde. I’m kidding.”

“I’m definitely playing that card. I’m going to look cute like …”

Brittany was laughing.

“I’m going to—”

“Cry a lot.”

As an advocate for children at Child Protective Services, Billie Winner was familiar with courtrooms and proceedings. Reality, she reasoned, was not a flight risk. She could safely come home and await trial. It would all work out.

Reality, blonde hair in a bun, in an orange jumpsuit with the words inmate stitched in yellow on the chest, was led into the courtroom in handcuffs by two armed U.S. Marshals. Inside the room, her cuffs and a chain around her waist were removed, but the Marshals stood before her the entire time. Her mother and stepfather waited outside the room to be called in.

Reality had written everything down. Assistant prosecutor Jennifer Solari described journals the FBI had seized from Reality’s home: notes she had made in a foreign language the prosecutors could neither read nor identify, jobs abroad she wanted to apply for, “two notebooks containing … numerous doodles of the defendant’s own name.” Among the minutiae of her life, the workouts and the worries, scribblings about dental insurance at her new job, prosecutors also found this: “I want to burn the white house down, find someplace to live in Jordan or Nepal. Ha ha. Maybe.” She had written, elsewhere, “Perhaps bin Laden was the Judas to Omar’s Christ-like vision of a fundamental Islamic nation. Yaqoob would know. Where is Yaqoob? Pakistan.”

Billie was the first to take the stand. She was asked why her daughter “took up an interest at the age of 17 in learning Arabic or Farsi or Dari or any of those?” and whether she had ever heard her daughter make plans to meet with the Taliban. She was asked whether her daughter had ever been in trouble, and she told the old story of the eighth-grade food fight Reality had insisted not be on spaghetti day.

Over the course of the hearing, the prosecution pointedly used the phrase “not criminal, but … of interest.” It’s not criminal, but it is “of interest,” to know how to change a sim card. It’s not criminal, but it is “of interest,” to own “four phones, two laptops, and one tablet.” And then there was the fact of a woman’s traveling alone to Belize “by herself for only three days, including travel. Nothing criminal about that, Your Honor, but it seems odd.”

The prosecution cross-examined Reality’s stepfather; when they called her his stepdaughter, he corrected them: my daughter.

“You and your wife were largely unaware of what your daughter did in terms of her employment,” the prosecutor said.

“She carried a Top Secret security clearance.”

“Right. So you really didn’t know what it was—”

“They can’t discuss what they do.”

There was also the question of character, and here the prosecution made frequent reference to jailhouse calls between Reality and her sister, which, it turned out, had been recorded: There was the conversation about Orange Is the New Black. “This defendant has shown her intent and her plan to manipulate this court,” said Solari, “by playing a cute white girl with her cute little braids and perhaps shedding some tears.”

I’ve spoken to Billie about her daughter for hours at a time, and it’s only the memory of the bail hearing that brings her to tears. “They took her words,” says Billie, lifting her glasses, closing her eyes, pressing her fingertips to her brows, “and they twisted them around.”

This is perhaps the most surprising thing about the story of Airman Reality Winner, linguist, intelligence specialist, a woman who spent years of her life dropping in on conversations among people this country considers potential enemies: It did not occur to her, in a moment of crisis, that someone might be listening.

Since her June arrest, Reality’s access to the outside world has been severely circumscribed; she is only allowed to see people for a single hour on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and those people, friends and family, must be on a list of nine that she gives the jail in advance.

In September, in a letter that included a hand-drawn heart under the valediction “peace and love,” Reality agreed to add me to that list, and a few weeks later I flew to Atlanta and drove three hours to the small town where she is being held. At the town center of Lincolnton, Georgia, sits a monument to the Confederacy. Attached to the courthouse, described by the state tourism board as “in the neo-classical revival style” — behind it and not visible from the road, in what is best described as “riotproof institutional”— is a one-story brick box lined with wire fencing. This is the Lincoln County Detention Center, a decidedly strange place to hold a federal prisoner on national-security charges, where the first person to be charged under the Espionage Act during the Trump administration watches Breaking Bad with women doing time for methamphetamine abuse. The jail is attached to a fenced concrete platform topped with coiled barbed wire, which I recognized immediately because I had seen it in pictures of Reality published on TMZ under the headline “Reality Winner Still Working Out Behind Bars.”

In jail, Reality continues to be the kind of person who would order a boyfriend to read a particular number of books a week. She teaches yoga in the space between beds, frets about the low calorie intake of a pregnant inmate, asks her mother to contribute to the commissary funds of the others. She is teaching herself Latin from a textbook in order to read Ovid in the original; above her bunk, stuck to the wall with toothpaste, is a picture of Nelson Mandela. During Bible-study sessions, she asks so many challenging questions of the instructor that the others have begun to see her as a useful distraction; they can get some extra sleep while she takes up the teacher’s time. In letters to friends and family and to me, she throws side-eye to her captors. “I hope this finds its way to you expediently,” she writes, “—looks at the vague, yet menacing government agents—”

On the Saturday morning in October when I came to visit Reality, the day was bright and warm, but through a set of double doors, in the fluorescent-lit waiting room of the Lincoln Country Detention Center, weather ceased to exist. A guard behind glass took my license through a slot, checked it against Reality’s visitor list. She led me into a narrow room and disappeared.

Reality and I spoke between glass on thick black phones tied to the wall by silver cords. She smiled shyly and spoke in complete sentences aphoristic in their tidiness. She was disappointed because when she had asked on Friday to go outside to have her allotted 30 minutes on the concrete platform surrounded by electrified wire, she had been told no. There was no outside time on weekends, so she would have to wait until Monday to ask again for the privilege of seeing some natural light. Alone in the room, on a recorded line, we talked, for a few brief minutes, about Kingsville, life in captivity, her father.

“He never shied away from ideology,” she said of their post-9/11 conversations. “Even though we were 10, 12, he told us exactly what they believed.”

As she took me through his thinking, the guard who had let me in opened the door and began to watch us.

“I had a map of the world above my bed,” said Reality, “but I didn’t know that—”

“Are you a reporter?” asked the guard.

“What’s going on?” Reality said, snapped out of calm into anger.

Forced back into the waiting room, I pleaded with the guard, who never stopped, during our interaction, slowly shaking her head. To talk to Reality, I would have to talk to a sheriff, who was not available and would in any case refer me to the Feds, who would refer me to a byzantine and self-evidently impossible process for obtaining the state’s permission to interview her. That Reality clearly wanted to tell her story was not sufficient reason to let her. Moments after I left, she called her mother. “They’re silencing me,” she said.

If her case goes to trial as scheduled in March, it will be watched by a growing class of intelligence professionals burdened by knowledge of a surveillance state, its programs and excesses, its featureless physical structures. They will watch as Reality’s lawyers struggle to defend her, because she likely will not be able to argue that leaking evidence of Russian interference in an American election is in the interest of the American public. In recent Espionage Act cases, prosecutors have successfully argued that the intention of the leaker is irrelevant, as is the perceived or actual value of the leak to the public. Accused, Reality finds herself trapped in this strange logic of secrecy, in which her dutiful discretion with members of her family is taken to be evidence that her family cannot defend her character, and the only room in which her intentions do not matter is the one in which she is set to be tried.

I drove out of Lincolnton, not without relief, past the concrete block surrounded by wire in which Reality was hoping to be allowed, out of sight of the courthouse, into a warm autumn morning, the leaves turning, and past a lush lawn canopied by oak trees where a large family was preparing for some kind of party. There were tablecloths on the foldout tables. This seemed to me amazing, to be outside and having a party, to have thought of tablecloths. I was headed to Augusta to talk to Reality’s mother and see the house where Reality had been seized. I was headed toward Fort Gordon, where the Army is building another Cyber Command center, next to the one in which Reality worked, where receivers will suck more conversations from the air and more cleared linguists will translate them. I was headed to the Savannah River, and when I got there, I pulled off. On the banks of this river, I was aware, the state of Georgia had begun building a massive high-tech training center to support the NSA.

I didn’t want to see the river and think about satellites, just as I didn’t want to think about intimate conversations in Iran violated by linguists in Georgia, or sisterly banter on Facebook probed by prosecutors in Washington, so I thought about a story the family had told me, about a vacation to SeaWorld when Reality and Brittany were just girls. The Winners took in a show, watched sleek gray dolphins leap in unison, their sweet-sounding squeals elicited on command. Brittany was loving it. At which point her little sister — ever the explainer, ever the scold — declared that in captivity, the dolphins’ signals bounce crazily off the walls; their capacity for echolocation drives them mad. For Brittany, the show was ruined. It had been easier not to know what was hidden below the visible, beneath the bright surface of the cage.

*This article appears in the December 25, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/12/ ... inner.html
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Mar 22, 2019 10:47 am

Speaking of Reality Winner, should Greenwald be lecturing anybody on outing their sources?

Glenn Greenwald

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Replying to @emptywheel
Marcy, I know you have a lot at stake here personally because you claimed you gave smoking gun evidence of collusion to Mueller & even *outed your own source* to the FBI, so I won't argue with you. Sorry it's ending like this. You can argue with the NYT:


Did you just fucking shame someone for outing a source?

Glenn's story about the "imminent" withdrawal of Assange's asylum....which he published 8 months ago. :roll:

can't wait for your next appearance on Tucker's show


The Intercept, a billionaire-funded public charity, cuts back
By Charles R. Davis

MARCH 15, 2019

ON WEDNESDAY, FIRST LOOK MEDIA delivered the latest in a flurry of bad news for digital media: the company, which includes The Intercept and was founded by a tech billionaire turned Twitter critic of Donald Trump, said it could no longer afford its research team, and was eliminating those jobs as part of a 4 percent cut in its workforce. “I am sickened,” Intercept co-founder Laura Poitras wrote in a March 13 email reported by The Daily Beast. The “beating heart of the newsroom,” she said, had been torn out.

That a billionaire is laying off employees is not a shock, except in this case the billionaire’s company was said to be in the public interest. Specifically, The Intercept is classified as a “public charity.” For nearly two years it has been soliciting donations from its readers for “fearless, independent journalism.”

“On the simplest level,” Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald wrote in a May 2017 appeal, “reader support will increase our funding, enable us to hire more great reporters, editors, designers, researchers, and others who make our journalism possible, ensuring that we continue to thrive and grow.”

ICYMI: WSJ reporter explains why he was fired

But a review of tax filings shows that, despite a belated effort to diversify its funding stream, both The Intercept and its parent company are still almost entirely dependent on one billionaire, Pierre Omidyar, and his gifts of stock in eBay and PayPal. Omidyar’s funding of First Look Media, totaling almost $90 million between 2013 and 2017, has helped cover the cost of salaries at The Intercept that dwarf those at other center-left, nonprofit outlets. While it’s unclear how much of Omidyar’s funding is benchmarked for The Intercept, its largesse may force the non-profit side of the company to abandon its IRS charitable status and reclassify itself as a private foundation. This, in turn, would mean stricter oversight, more charitable donations from the company, and more taxes on Omidyar’s remaining pledge to First Look of some $160 million. Following the layoffs, a spokesperson for the First Look affirmed that “Pierre continues to be a supporter of FLM,” and that “no reporters or editors were impacted” by the layoffs.

In 2013, Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, announced he was investing $250 million in the dying industry of journalism. And he was hiring an all-star cast for the resurrection—journalists with Academy Award nominations to go with their reputations for fierce reporting and unsparing commentary. For a time, it was a beacon of hope. Soon, however, the budding newsroom was generating the wrong kind of content.


“The Unmanageables,” was the Vanity Fair headline a little over a year later. “Can First Look Media make headlines that aren’t about itself?” By that point there was turmoil: Matt Taibbi, one of its star writers, had returned to Rolling Stone, complaining of bureaucracy and micromanagement while himself facing a complaint of misogyny and unprofessionalism from another First Look employee. John Cook, editor in chief of The Intercept, also left, with apparently little love lost. And another staffer, former Harper’s reporter Ken Silverstein, had already written a tell-all for Politico entitled, “Where Journalism Goes to Die.”

ICYMI: Newspaper upgrades CEO’s housing stipend to $35K a month amid buyouts

After that, things pretty much steadied. The Intercept produced the sort of reporting on crime, the border and America’s wars at home and abroad that had always been hoped for, much of it by writers unknown when it launched. There were still the unfortunate headlines—Reality Winner was imprisoned after giving The Intercept an intelligence report on Russian government hacking of state voting systems, and a former Intercept staffer was convicted of making hoax bomb threats at Jewish Community Centers—but the straight reporting often was and is top-notch.

But it remains curious, and especially so in the wake of layoffs: with a billionaire for a founder, why does The Intercept need to solicit donations from its readers? And now, with cuts being made from the bottom of the organization, eyes are on its salaries at the top. First Look Media Works, Inc.—the tax-exempt 501(c)(3) side of FLM, and parent of The Intercept—paid Greenwald more than $1.6 million from 2014 to 2017, the last year for which there is a financial disclosure. In Donald Trump’s first year in office, his salary dipped to $369,847, during which time he produced a weekly column—over 50 pieces. The recipient of Edward Snowden’s NSA leak also composes more than 40 tweets a day, on average.

Greenwald’s salary peaked in 2015, hauling in more than $518,000, money that supports an envious life in a gated community on the edge of Rio de Janeiro. Betsy Reed, editor in chief of The Intercept, earned $309,243 in 2016 and $368,249 the year after. Overall, The Intercept spent $9.3 million in salaries in 2017, up $1.4 million from the year before. (Jeremy Scahill, an Intercept cofounder, earned $349,826 in 2015, the last time his compensation was included in a disclosure.)

While the salaries at the top may not be unheard of in media, they are large for digital media and noteworthy in the world of progressive, nonprofit journalism. In 2017, Mother Jones, another left-of-center news outlet, paid its DC bureau chief David Corn $171,298 in reportable compensation; Clara Jeffery, vice president and editor-in-chief of the magazine, earned just under $200,000. At The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news site focused on criminal justice reform, the highest paid employee is managing editor Kristen Danis, who earned $198,850, according to its latest 990 filing; Bill Keller, a former executive editor at The New York Times, made $178,675 as the site’s editor-in-chief. (Keller is retiring, a spokesperson noted.)

At the Omidyar-funded news organization, salaries have been an issue even before there were layoffs.

“I was recruited to work with First Look before it was publicly announced,” Marcy Wheeler, a national security journalist best known for her coverage of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia and the Trump campaign, wrote in a January 2018 essay. “The initial discussions pertained to a full-time job, with a generous salary. But along the way—after Glenn and Jeremy Scahill had already gotten a number of other people hired and as Pierre Omidyar started hearing from friends that the effort was out of control—the outlet decided that they were going to go in a different direction. They’d have journalists—Glenn and Jeremy counted as that. And they’d have bloggers, who would get paid less.” That discrepancy, and the indignity of being treated as a less-than-full journalist, led to her resignation. (The base salary at First Look is $55,000, according to its contract with WGAE.)

Omidyar, with a net worth of $11.2 billion, does not seem inclined to cut salary costs at the top. In a statement provided to CJR prior to the cutbacks in staff, a First Look spokesperson says the company would be fine. “We are grateful for the ongoing financial support of Pierre Omidyar,” the statement said. The company also disputed the notion that a lack of support from others beside him would affect either its output or First Look Media Works’s—and hence, the Intercept’s—tax status. “We anticipate that it will continue to qualify as a public charity in the coming years,” the statement said, adding that “any future change to our public charity status would have no impact on our public operations or activities, our commitment to independent journalism or the type of work we support.”

In order to maintain its status as a “public charity,” First Look Media Works must receive “a substantial part of its support from a government unit or from the general public,” according to the Internal Revenue Service. Specifically, it must receive 33.3 percent of its support this way over five years; barring that, 10 percent, with a good enough explanation (“facts and circumstances”). If it were to lose this status, First Look Media Works would become a “private foundation,” and subject to rigorous scrutiny from the IRS.

Private foundations also are required to distribute 5 percent of their assets every year for charitable purposes; in 2017, First Look gave away 3.6 percent of its $25.9 million, and it could conceivably claim its salaries are part of its charitable giving. Foundations must also pay a 1 to 2 percent excise tax on investment income.

Of the $90 million in total disclosed support it has received, $87 million has come from Omidyar, meaning just 2.7 percent of its revenue can be characterized as “public support.” The level of non-Omidyar money to the non-profit side is indeed rising—6 percent in 2017—but First Look Media Works will require there to have been a lot more in 2018 if it wishes to reach the IRS’s more charitable 10 percent threshold.

Omidyar primarily supports First Look Media Works’s operations with transfers of stock, a common method of supporting non-profit organizations that allows the donor to avoid capital gains taxes while deducting the transfer as a charitable donation. A charity that receives stock as a gift can sell it without paying taxes, either. In 2017, two such donations were made, worth $12.7 million at the time. The names of those companies are whited out on that year’s financial disclosure, along with the name of the donor, but previous years’ filings show Omidyar donated hundreds of thousands of shares in eBay and PayPal. Including 2017, those gifts were worth just under $58 million at the time they were transferred.

It will be difficult, but not impossible, for the math to work here. If Omidyar withheld all financial support in 2018, as he did in 2014, and public support increased by 400 percent—from about $1 million a year to $4 million—the company might be able to hold on to its status as a charity, if just barely. First Look Media declined to say how much its patron or the public gave last year, though layoffs, anywhere, are a clue that not everything has gone according to plan.
https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/la ... ercept.php
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Apr 03, 2019 1:30 pm

why is Reality Winner in jail Glenn Greenwald?


The Intercept failed to shield its confidential source.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby alloneword » Wed Apr 03, 2019 2:59 pm

JackRiddler » Thu Sep 13, 2018 3:26 pm wrote:.

Aaron Maté interviews James Risen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzR0NkJulwI

Transcript:
What Does The Intercept’s NSA Leak Say About Russian Vote Hacking?
https://therealnews.com/stories/what-do ... te-hacking

Commentary:
Aaron Maté is a Beast!
BY STEPHEN BONI ON SEPTEMBER 12, 2018
https://ghionjournal.com/aaron-mate-is-a-beast/


Thanks for that, Jack. I must admit that I'd not given this particular story much attention (probably as much due to the unfortunate woman's name as anything else :oops: ), your links brought me up-to-speed without having to wade through all the drivel.

I find the notion that a 'former American intelligence specialist', in 2017, didn't know about 'Machine Identification Code' (yellow printer ID dots) somewhat astonishing. The notion that the staff at 'The Intercept' who were tasked with verifying the documents with the NSA were also unaware of MIC tagging is frankly beyond belief.

The content of this document and the subsequent media coverage of the case further add to my skepticism.

Aaron Maté wrote:But when you say the document shows the NSA has evidence- let’s go through the document, because I don’t think it shows that. And this is where I think Intercept did not fully explain to readers what the document actually said. And the reason why I think this is important. It’s because this document is the only actual public evidence we have so far that attributes voting hacking attempts to the Russian government. And it’s been the basis for a lot of fear about that alleged Russian hacking since...

..the document itself shows that the NSA, at least according to this document, is not even sure, does not have confirmed information it’s the GRU. It’s simply the judgment of one analyst. And I’m wondering if based on that you are open the possibility that the significance of this document has been inflated.
(my emph)

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...zzzzzz....zzzzz.....zzzzzziltch. :)
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Apr 03, 2019 3:24 pm

John Kiriakou

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.@theintercept should be ashamed of itself. Matthew Cole burns yet another source. It makes your entire organization untrustworthy.

@theintercept showed NSA the original document for comment.
https://twitter.com/JohnKiriakou?lang=en


Moon of Alabama

Do Not Trust The Intercept or How To Burn A Source

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/06/d ... ource.html


WikiLeaks Declares War on The Intercept
The FBI says a reporter led it to an NSA leaker. Julian Assange says that person, whom he suspects is an Intercept reporter, is a ‘menace’ to sources, journalists, and democracy.
On his personal Twitter account, Assange expressed support for Winner’s actions, saying “she is a young women [sic] accused of courage in trying to help us know.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/wikileaks ... -intercept


The Intercept's Bad Track Record Gets Worse as New Whistleblower Outed
March 30th, 2018
MINNEAPOLIS – On Wednesday, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) reported that former Minneapolis-based FBI agent Terry James Albury had been charged with leaking classified government information to the online publication The Intercept.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/bad-track ... pt/239822/


Ted Rall
Et Tu, Glenn Greenwald?
June 12, 2017
Image
NSA whistleblower Reality Winner leaked a secret NSA memo to the journalism website The Intercept, which promptly betrayed her by showing the document to the NSA. Even worse, they told the Agency where it was mailed from. As a result, Winner is now warming the inside of a prison cell. At bare minimum, The Intercept owes Winner and its readers a big apology for burning their source. But who can possibly trust a news organization that has such close ties to the government spooks it claims to be covering?
http://rall.com/comic/intercept-burned-reality-winner


What’s important for readers to know, to The Intercept’s founding editors, is that their publication’s alleged source was not motivated by their Russia skepticism, or at least not spurred by the transcript of one recorded expression of it. What’s conspicuously lacking is that express solidarity with a woman — source or not — who is accused of, and facing prison time for, releasing a report that revealed no raw intelligence or intelligence-gathering methods but demonstrated, for the skeptics, that at least the U.S. intelligence community’s internal assessments track with its public statements.
But that, again, may be unwelcome for those who have devoted a year to a nothing-to-see-here line.

https://medium.com/@charlesdavis/realit ... 70718aaac6


Reality Winner trusted Glenn Greenwald and now she's in federal prison

Greenwald had no problem throwing courageous Reality Winner to the wolves while protecting Assange

She actually sent the info to the intercept to prove to Greenwald that Russian interference...and she got prison time for her trouble

yea Glenn sees a difference in different whistleblowers depending on the info ...it is so obvious why she is in jail

Reality Winner should have known better than to try and contradict Glenn's pro-Russia/trump editorial line and given those docs to NBC.


But that, again, may be unwelcome for those who have devoted a year to a nothing-to-see-here line.



The Intercept's Bad Track Record Gets Worse as New Whistleblower Outed
March 30th, 2018
MINNEAPOLIS – On Wednesday, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) reported that former Minneapolis-based FBI agent Terry James Albury had been charged with leaking classified government information to the online publication The Intercept. Albury’s legal defense, led by Jane Anne Murray and Joshua Dratel, identified him as a whistleblower, stating that his decision to leak the documents was “driven by a conscientious commitment to long-term national security and addressing the well-documented systemic biases within the FBI.”

Albury’s defense also noted that he has accepted “full responsibility for the conduct set forth in the Information,” referencing the fact that the document charging Albury was a two-page felony information. As noted by the Star Tribune, such a document usually signals an imminent guilty plea.

Albury had previously worked as a liaison on counter-terrorism matters at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. He has been charged with one count of “knowingly and willfully” transmitting documents and information related to national defense to a news organization and one count of refusing to hand over documents in his possession to the government upon request.


While the FBI warrant filed against Albury does not explicitly name The Intercept, MPR revealed that the documents described in the search warrant exactly match a cache of FBI documents used in The Intercept’s article series titled “The FBI’s Secret Rules,” published in January 2017. Albury is alleged to have possessed and shared the documents with a news outlet between February 2016 and January 2017. The documents examine the expansion of, as well as the questionable tactics used by, the FBI since the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Intercept’s current editor, Betsy Reed, stated that the publication does not discuss anonymous sources.

Read more by Whitney Webb

The Media’s Curious Coverage of the “Second Snowden”
Displacing WikiLeaks and Intercepting Whistleblowers: SecureDrop’s Security Problem
Palantir: The PayPal-offshoot Becomes a Weapon in the War Against Whistleblowers and WikiLeaks
FBI Whistleblower on Pierre Omidyar and His Campaign to Neuter Wikileaks
Former FBI special agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley — who retired after 24 years after having opposed the invasion of Iraq and exposed the agency’s mishandling of information — told MintPress that she was “kind of surprised that FBI informant guidelines,” such as those allegedly leaked by Albury, “are now considered secret as, if I remember right, most of the informant guidelines were not classified when I worked there [up to and including 2004]. But after 9-11, things began to rapidly change, so I am guessing they have overly/improperly classified them [these types of documents].”

Rowley, who like Albury worked in Minneapolis during her time at the FBI, continued that “the informant program was replete with problems because there was no oversight” during her years at the FBI and that “Albury was probably trying to bring systemic problems [in the FBI] to the public. That makes him a true whistleblower.”

The Intercept fails to protect its source

Other information contained in the complaint against Albury has led some to suggest that The Intercept was responsible for outing or “burning” Albury as a confidential source. According to the FBI, The Intercept made two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in March 2016. Both of those requests contained specific information identifying the names of the documents that were not publicly available.

Previously sealed FBI search warrants show that these FOIA requests led the FBI to link references contained in the requests to Albury’s activity on FBI information systems. This led the FBI to conclude that “the classified and/or controlled nature of the documents indicates the News Outlet obtained these documents from someone with direct access to them” and that The Intercept had the documents prior to making the FOIA requests and then “used its knowledge of such documents to create the FOIA requests.”

Jesus, what a bad look. A second member of the US intelligence community, this time a Minneapolis FBI agent, has been charged with leaking to the Intercept. This appears to the the opsec failure: https://t.co/nMX1K2qUHn pic.twitter.com/eW3xTpsSf8

— Kevin Collier (@kevincollier) March 28, 2018

Ah the Intercept: Get a source, try to launder the source's leaked documents through FOIA requests, fail, publish anyway, get source arrested.#NeverChangehttps://t.co/Vb0tjD1M7T

— Nicholas Weaver (@ncweaver) March 28, 2018

An FBI review conducted at a later date found that Albury had taken 11 screenshots of one of the documents specifically named in the FOIA requests by The Intercept and was one of only 16 individuals to access the document between August 2011 and March 29, 2016 – when the FOIA request was filed. The warrant also added that “to date, a review of FBI records has revealed no indication that any individual other than ALBURY both accessed this document and conducted cut and paste action.”

The FBI has asserted that Albury was found to have accessed more than two-thirds of the leaked documents published by The Intercept and had been caught taking photos of other secret documents months later in the summer of 2017.

Interestingly, The Intercept report referencing Albury’s arrest does not make any mention of the FOIA requests mentioned in the FBI’s case against Albury. A statement regarding Albury’s arrest from First Look Media, The Intercept’s parent company, mentions neither the FOIA requests nor the involvement of The Intercept.

Second whistleblower burned in less than a year

Albury is not the first source to have been burned by poor journalistic practices and source protection methods at The Intercept. Just nine months ago, Reality Leigh Winner, a now 26-year-old federal contractor, was arrested for allegedly leaking a classified NSA document to The Intercept that was related to an investigation of an alleged Russian military intelligence hacking operation targeting the U.S. Ever since her initial arrest, Winner has been held in pre-trial detention and has been denied bail. She faces up to 10 years in prison under the Espionage Act and her trial is set to begin in October of this year.

While The Intercept has long maintained that it was unaware that Winner was the source of the document, FBI documents have shown that negligence helped lead federal investigators straight to Winner.The Intercept’s scanned images of the intelligence report that Winner leaked contained tracking dots – a type of watermark – that, according to Rob Graham of the Errata Security blog, showed “exactly when and where documents, any document, is printed.” These dots make it easy to identify a printer’s serial number as well as the date and time a document was printed. As Graham noted, “Because the NSA logs all printing jobs on its printers, it can use this to match up precisely who printed the document.”

https://twitter.com/ErrataRob/status/871931112221794306

In addition, and perhaps most concerning of all, the FBI warrant also notes that the reporter in question – who is unnamed in the document – contacted a government contractor with whom he had a prior relationship and revealed where the documents had been postmarked from – Winner’s home of Augusta, Georgia – along with Winner’s work location. He also sent unedited images of the documents that contained the tracking dot security markings that allowed the document to be traced to Winner.

Despite that, The Intercept has never named the reporter who was responsible and has taken minimal responsibility as an organization for her arrest. However, Pierre Omidyar – the billionaire backer of The Intercept, who has a noted disdain for transparency organizations like WikiLeaks – has directed First Look Media, The Intercept’s parent company, to support Winner’s legal defense via its Press Freedom Defense Fund. It remains to be seen if Omidyar and First Look Media will offer to support Albury’s defense.

While the identity of the reporter mentioned in the FBI warrant remains unknown, the published report that used the document leaked by Winner has four authors – two of whom, Matthew Cole and Richard Esposito, were once involved in a case against CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou. Cole still writes regularly for The Intercept while Esposito’s last story for the publication was the report containing the Winner document. When Winner’s arrest was announced, Kiriakou specifically singled out Cole as having not only misled him, but also played a likely role in incriminating him. Kiriakou spent nearly two years in prison for exposing the CIA’s torture program.

Kiriakou, in an email to MintPress stated:

I am appalled that yet another whistleblower in touch with The Intercept has been outed and arrested. The Intercept has a track record on whistleblowers that it should be ashamed of. Reality Winner was in touch with The Intercept and was arrested and charged with espionage. Terry Albury apparently was in touch with The Intercept and was arrested and charged with espionage. I was arrested and charged with espionage after being in touch with Matthew Cole, now an Intercept reporter. If The Intercept cannot or will not protect the identity of its sources, it should not be in the business of journalism. Indeed, perhaps The Intercept should walk away from national security reporting before its lack of journalistic professionalism ruins any more lives.”

Rowley, for her part, took a different view of the situation. She stated that “whistleblowing is so difficult these days for a lot of different reasons. … Both the whistleblower and the reporter are really up against some huge challenges. It’s probably not possible [anymore] to guarantee secrecy. If any reporter is promising that kind of thing, they are probably not being honest because the government has really doubled down on the ‘insider threat.’”

However, Rowley also expressed skepticism about recent hires at The Intercept and also asserted:

[The Intercept] should be a lot more forthright about this [Albury arrest] because this issue [whistleblowers, leaks] is their bread and butter. … That’s The Intercept’s brand and if they now are falling down on that job they should be as forthright as they could be about this mess and not just blaming [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions and Trump – the crackdown on whistleblowers has been going on for a long time.”

She also expressed concern about the SecureDrop platform that The Intercept promotes.

Pierre Omidyar and the Snowden documents

The news that another whistleblower in contact with The Intercept has been arrested is concerning, as it suggests that source protection at the outlet is not given the importance it deserves, especially when those sources are risking their freedom to get vital information out to the public. However, other actions taken by The Intercept in its short history have also raised concern and have been the subject of extensive reporting at MintPress News as well as other publications, such as Pando.

Much of the scrutiny, aside from the arrest of Winner and now Albury, has been aimed at The Intercept’s billionaire backer, Pierre Omidyar, who is very well-connected to various agencies of the U.S. government and powerful politicians, including past presidents; has funded U.S.-backed regime-change efforts abroad; and still funds USAID, particularly its overseas program aimed at “advancing U.S. national security interests” abroad. Omidyar also has a history of attacking the transparency organization WikiLeaks and has publicly stated that, in the case of those who leak documents to news outlets, those outlets “should help catch the thief.”

Concern and speculation related to Omidyar’s role at The Intercept has proliferated due to its glacial publishing of the Snowden documents. Indeed, The Intercept was founded with the mission to “aggressively report” on the leaked NSA documents Edward Snowden provided to Intercept co-founders Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald. However, in the years since The Intercept’s founding, more than 90 percent of those documents leaked by Snowden have yet to be made publicly available, leading some to accuse the publication of having “privatized” leaks originally intended for public scrutiny.

Snowden, however, has not publicly spoken about the slow pace of the releases and, in the past, has said he delegated all decision-making regarding the release of the documents to the journalists to whom he gave his cache. Snowden’s lack of concern could also potentially be due to the fact that he is now the President of the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), which has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Omidyar since 2014. The majority of the FPF’s directors, aside from Snowden, either work for First Look Media – the Omidyar-owned parent company of The Intercept – or for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) – which has received significant funding from the Omidyar network since 2004.

Another area of contention related to the release – or lack thereof – of the Snowden documents has been the timing with which some documents have been released. In two recent cases, The Intercept published Snowden documents that would have had a major impact had they been released earlier. In one instance, The Intercept published a document last year on the Syrian conflict that revealed that some Syrian “rebel” opposition groups were taking marching orders from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As MintPress reported at the time, The Intercept published this document only after the U.S. State Department itself began to report more honestly on the nature of these so-called “rebels.”

A more recent example of this occurred little over a week ago. On March 20, The Intercept published Snowden documents that revealed how the NSA worked to illegally “track down” Bitcoin users, naming tracking the movements of Bitcoin as a “#1 priority.” However, the information in this document was released only after Bitcoin had become a mainstream phenomenon. It also was released after it could have helped defend Ross Ulbricht of Silk Road fame.

As The Intercept itself noted:

Part of his [Ulbricht’s] unsuccessful defense was the insistence that the FBI’s story of how it found him did not add up, and that the government may have discovered and penetrated the Silk Road’s servers with the help of the NSA — possibly illegally. The prosecution dismissed this theory in no uncertain terms.”

Thus, if this document had been released before or during Ulbricht’s trial, it could have impacted the outcome. In 2016, Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison without parole and his legal team is seeking to appeal that decision. Interestingly, one of Ulbricht’s lawyers, Joshua Dratel, is currently representing Terry Albury.

“Welcoming” whistleblowers should not mean outing them

Despite its sizable financial resources and the number of employees who are dedicated to source protection, The Intercept’s practices have led to the arrest of a source — not once but twice — in less than a year. In the cases of Winner and now Albury, it has not taken full responsibility for its role in outing either of these unfortunate whistleblowers, but still seeks to present itself as a trustworthy organization that “welcomes whistleblowers.” Along with past calls to scrutinize the publication — as well as its billionaire backer — Albury’s arrest should serve as a fresh reminder that The Intercept has largely become part of the establishment journalism that it purports to stand against, and is hardly the haven for whistleblowers that it has presented itself to be.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/bad-track ... pt/239822/



The Intercept
Betsy Reed
August 23 2018, 10:08 a.m.

STATEMENT ON THE SENTENCING OF WHISTLEBLOWER REALITY WINNER FOR DISCLOSING NSA REPORT ON RUSSIAN ELECTION HACKING
Betsy Reed
August 23 2018, 10:08 a.m.
REALITY WINNER WAS sentenced today to 63 months in prison for disclosing a top-secret NSA document describing a hacking campaign directed by the Russian military against U.S. voting systems.

On June 5, 2017, The Intercept published a story about the document. We did not know the identity of the source who had sent it to us. Shortly after we posted our story, we learned that Winner had been arrested two days earlier. After an internal review, we acknowledged shortcomings in our handling of the document.
https://theintercept.com/2018/08/23/rea ... n-hacking/




Reality Winner was arrested by FBI agents at her home in Augusta, Georgia, June 3rd, 2017, two days before The Intercept published an exposé revealing Russian military intelligence conducted a cyberattack on at least one US voting software company just days before the US presidential election in 2016


It was provided to the Intercept, which made several mistakes related to source protection that led authorities to identify Winner as the person who gave the report to the media outlet.
https://shadowproof.com/2018/08/23/nsa- ... isclosure/



Evidence That The Intercept Betrayed Winner
The Intercept Sent A Copy Of The Document To An NSA Contractor Who Tattled
One of the Intercept's reporters shared a photograph of the document with another contractor in an attempt to verify its authenticity. Crucially, that reporter told the contractor that the document had been sent from Augusta, Georgia — where Winner lives.

[O]n May 24, a reporter from the Intercept reached out to an unnamed government contractor, trying to determine the validity of the leak. During the exchange, the Intercept revealed that the leak had been mailed with a postmark of Augusta, Georgia, where Winner lives. (Checking with other sources about the validity of a leak is not necessarily bad opsec; revealing specific information about the leak almost certainly is — though it's also probably more common than journalists would like to admit.)
[New York Magazine]

According to the FBI's search warrant affidavit, the contractor eventually told his or her superiors about the conversation with the reporter.

The Contractor informed the Reporter that he thought that the documents were fake. Nonetheless, the Contractor contacted the U.S. Government Agency on or about June 1, 2017, to inform the U.S. Government Agency of his interaction with the Reporter. Also on June 1, 2017, the Reporter texted the Contractor and said that a U.S Government Agency official had verified that the document was real.
Lawfare's Susan Hennessey points out on Twitter that the Intercept's contractor source was legally obligated to report any leak to his or her superiors, which means that the Intercept was taking a big risk by sharing the leak with him or her.


The Intercept Also Gave A Copy Of The Document Directly To The NSA
As part of the verification process, and to give the government a chance to recommend redactions of sensitive info, the Intercept shared some version of the document with the NSA.

The Intercept also passed along a copy of the document to the government as part of its reporting process — and that apparently contained some clues as well. "The U.S. Government Agency examined the document shared by the News Outlet and determined the pages of the intelligence reporting appeared to be folded and/or creased, suggesting they had been printed and hand-carried out of a secured space," says one of the court documents.
[Washington Post]
http://digg.com/2017/did-intercept-burn-reality-winner



Mother of NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner: My Daughter Was “Nailed to the Door”
Amy Goodman Published August 24, 2018
NSA whistleblower Reality Winner has been sentenced to five years and three months in prison — the longest sentence ever imposed in federal court for leaking government information to the media. Twenty-six-year-old Reality Winner is the first person to be sentenced under the Espionage Act since President Trump took office. Her sentencing Thursday came after she pleaded guilty in June to transmitting a top-secret document to a news organization. She had faced up to 10 years in prison. We speak with her mother, Billie Winner-Davis.

TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: NSA whistleblower Reality Winner has been sentenced to five years and three months in prison — the longest sentence ever imposed in federal court for leaking government information to the media. The 26-year-old Reality Winner is the first person to be sentenced under the Espionage Act since President Trump took office. Her sentencing Thursday came after she pleaded guilty in June to transmitting a top-secret document to a news organization. She had faced up to 10 years in prison.

This is Bobby Christine, US attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, speaking after Winner’s sentencing.

BOBBY CHRISTINE: The sentence rendered today is the longest received by a defendant for an unauthorized disclosure of national defense information to the media. It appropriately satisfies the need for both punishment and deterrence, in light of the nature and seriousness of the offense. … Winner’s purposeful violation put our nation’s security at risk. … She claimed to hate America. When asked, “You don’t really hate America, right?” she responded, “I mean, yeah, I do. It’s literally the worst thing to happen on the planet.” She was the quintessential example of an insider threat.

AMY GOODMAN: Reality Winner was arrested by FBI agents at her home in Augusta, Georgia, June 3rd, 2017, two days before The Intercept published an exposé revealing Russian military intelligence conducted a cyberattack on at least one US voting software company just days before the US presidential election in 2016. The exposé was based on a classified NSA report from May 5th, 2017, that shows the agency is convinced the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, was responsible for interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

Earlier this morning, President Trump tweeted about the case, saying, quote, “Ex-NSA contractor to spend 63 months in jail over ‘classified’ information. Gee, this is ‘small potatoes’ compared to what Hillary Clinton did! So unfair Jeff, Double Standard.” He was referring to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who he has been attacking over the last 24 hours.

For more, we’re joined by three guests who were in the courtroom Thursday during Reality Winner’s sentencing. Joining us via Democracy Now! video stream is Billie Winner-Davis, mother of Reality Leigh Winner. She’s joining us from Augusta, where Reality Winner was sentenced. In Atlanta, Georgia, Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He has been covering Reality’s case and has covered several whistleblower trials, including that of Chelsea Manning. He was in the courtroom on Wednesday. And in Washington, DC, James Risen is with us, The Intercept’s senior national security correspondent, a best-selling author and a former New York Times reporter, also serves as director of First Look Media’s Press Freedom Defense Fund.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Reality’s mother, Billie Winner-Davis. You were in the courtroom with your daughter. Can you explain your — can you share your reaction to her plea deal and sentencing?

BILLIE WINNER–DAVIS: Well, I think yesterday my initial reaction to the whole proceeding and the judge’s sentencing was, I was relieved that the judge did approve of the plea agreement that the parties had reached for the 63 months in prison with a 3-year supervised release. Today I’m a little bit bitter. I’m a little angry. No, I should say I’m a lot bitter today. Just processing it, knowing that she is going to be serving the longest prison sentence for this, hearing Mr. Christine’s comments about her, hearing, you know, again, that she has to be the deterrent for anyone else in America who would think of warning us, of blowing the whistle on something important like this, it’s just — it’s really hard. It’s hard, as her mother, to have to experience this and to know that she’s going to be the one who is going to set the example. She is that first leaker under Trump’s administration. She’s the first one that they intended to nail to the door as a message to others.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you share Reality’s statement yesterday before the judge?

BILLIE WINNER–DAVIS: Reality had a pretty lengthy statement that she had worked on. She basically — she let the judge know a little bit about who she was. She did share with the court that she was grateful for the professionalism that everyone had shown to her, the respectful environment. She let the court know, you know, a little bit about who she was, why she went in to serve her country. She basically went through her childhood, her relationship with her father, how 9/11 had affected her as a child, how she followed her stepbrother’s footsteps to go into the Air Force to be a linguist. She wanted to serve her country. She really had the desire to protect and defend and serve her country. I think she was trying to, you know, let the court know that although in some statements with texting with her sister she did indicate that she hates America, that that’s not really who she was. And so, she was really letting the court know a little bit about herself.

She also apologized to the court. She apologized to the government for the breach of trust. She apologized to the court and the government for the expense that she has cost them. She apologized to her family. She indicated that she knew that what she had done was wrong. She indicated that she was willing to accept responsibility and willing to move forward and accept the consequences of her actions.

AMY GOODMAN: How long has she been in jail, Billie?

BILLIE WINNER–DAVIS: She’s been in jail for about 15 months.

AMY GOODMAN: Will that be part — will time served be part of that five — more than five years in jail?

BILLIE WINNER–DAVIS: Yes, it’s my understanding that that time served will count toward her sentence, day for day.

AMY GOODMAN: When she came into the courtroom, you heard her shackles?

BILLIE WINNER–DAVIS: Yes. That was — that was really difficult. That’s the first time that we’ve heard that, I think, because typically she’s been in the courtroom downstairs, and there’s carpeting. You know, you kind of hear her shuffle. But yesterday it was very quiet when they brought her in. And when she went up to the podium, you could actually hear her leg shackles hit the floor and make that clanking sound. It’s really striking that every time that Reality has appeared in court, she has to wear the orange inmate jumpsuit. She is shackled. She is very much presented as a criminal in that court. They dehumanize her, and they portray her as a criminal.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, your daughter Reality will be incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas. Why a medical center?

BILLIE WINNER–DAVIS: That is only the recommendation at this time. That’s the recommendation that her defense team is making for her, the recommendation that a psychiatrist is making for her. And the judge actually approved of that recommendation yesterday. Whether or not she’s placed there, we won’t know. That will be up to the Bureau of Prisons to decide. But we do feel like that facility will meet her needs. My daughter does suffer from severe depression. She does suffer from bulimia. This entire situation with her being incarcerated, her inability to really control her environment, has been very difficult on her. And we’re hoping that she is placed there, so that they can meet her needs and she can get the treatment that she needs.

AMY GOODMAN: And did you speak to her? Were you able to communicate with her yesterday?

BILLIE WINNER–DAVIS: Afterward, she called me when she was back at the jail. The defense team did ask the marshals if we could be allowed, you know, a brief visit with her yesterday at the courthouse. And again, we were denied. They make this request whenever they can. And again, the marshals will not permit us to be in the same room with her.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then come back to this discussion. We’re speaking to Billie Winner-Davis. She is the mother of Reality Winner, who has just been sentenced to more than five years for releasing intelligence, leaking a top-secret document to The Intercept. When we come back, in addition to Billie Winner-Davis, we’ll be joined by Jim Risen. He is now at The Intercept. He’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. He himself has been prosecuted, under the Obama administration. And we’ll talk about that, as well. And Kevin Gosztola, longtime reporter, in the courtroom yesterday, he’ll be speaking to us from Atlanta. Stay with us.
https://truthout.org/video/mother-of-ns ... -the-door/
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby RocketMan » Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:07 am

This thread has obviously been dredged up in an effort to desperately attempt to discredit those who don't agree with the Russiagate line.

The Intercept's handling of her leak was shabby. As is using her as a prop to advance a dangerous political fiction that plays in the Trump administration's hands.

Maybe read The Mint Press News and Moon of Alabama more than just to use stray lines in internet arguments? They both piss on Russiagate.
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Re: RI Subject - Reality Winner

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Apr 04, 2019 7:49 am

Mar 22, 2019 9:47 am

this was the last time I "dredged up" this thread TWO WEEKS AGO

I have been "dredging up" this thread since Tue Jun 06, 2017 10:07 am

I didn't just "dredge up" this thread ...could you please just stop ...this attitude about me is getting really old....and your made up myriad of excuses as to why you have a problem with me is just silly

I don't need your advice about what I read...how to post....or what threads I will be bumping and for what reason. I will add to any thread I want ...whenever I want ...my reasoning for posting is not for you to decided and I resent your inserting your conclusion as to my actions
Last edited by seemslikeadream on Thu Apr 04, 2019 8:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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