Reality Winner Sentenced To More Than 5 Years For Leaking Info About Russia Hacking Attempts (nbcnews.com) 261
A former government contractor who pleaded guilty to leaking U.S. secrets about Russia's attempts to hack the 2016 presidential election was sentenced Thursday to five years and three months in prison. From a report: It was the sentence that prosecutors had recommended in the plea deal -- the longest sentence ever given for a federal crime involving leaks to the news media -- for Reality Winner, the Georgia woman at the center of the case. Winner was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and no fine, except for a $100 special assessment fee. The crime carried a maximum penalty of 10 years. U.S. District Court Judge J. Randal Hall in Augusta, Georgia, was not bound to follow the plea deal, but elected to give Winner the amount of time prosecutors requested. Winner, 26, who contracted for the National Security Agency, pleaded guilty in June to copying a classified report that detailed the Russian government's efforts to penetrate a Florida-based voting software supplier. Further reading: How a Few Yellow Dots Burned the Intercept's NSA Leaker.
Reality Winner (Score:4, Interesting)
Is that her name?
(Beside which, the NSA has really bad security.)
Re:Reality Winner (Score:4, Insightful)
2. who hires somebody with a whackjob name like that? they might be a wackjob. Let alone the N S A.
3. this is the kind of thing that leads me more and more to the conclusion that the scriptwriter for this show is a hack of the lowest caliber, doesn't even care any more and is probably a habitual drunkard.
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this is the kind of thing that leads me more and more to the conclusion that the scriptwriter for this show is a hack of the lowest caliber, doesn't even care any more and is probably a habitual drunkard.
There does seem to be a lot of evidence for this hypothesis. In fact, there's already a religion [principiadiscordia.com] around the idea. "But do not reject these teachings as false because I am crazy. The reason that I am crazy is because they are true. "
Not the NSA (Score:4, Informative)
She was never hired by the NSA. She got her security clearance via the Air Force (as a translator.) She leaked NSA documents because everything is contracted out. In this case, her employer when she got the documents was Pluribus International Corporation.
Also, if she was named that by her parents, you shouldn't blame her. Like 20% of people hate their names, but consider it too hard to change.
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I am dismayed that so many government functions are contracted out. Including the hiring of mercenaries. These are critical government functions so I don't understand why we leave these to unvetted, untrained, unaccountable, and expensive private companies. is this just an attempt to undermine the govenment by the hardcore small government types?
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No, it's about funneling public money to cronies of the politicians, same as it ever was.
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The information was not that important and the reality, should have had zero security rating, why would it be secret, except it was empty bullshit, they were keeping secret.
Ultimately the court test for breaching security, should be tied to the secret released, meaningless nothing, than a meaningless nothing penalty, major important secret that factually does risk life, than major penalty. The leak should not be penalised as much as the impact of the leak.
That the information was not disclosed, shows how c
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Like 20% of people hate their names, but consider it too hard to change.
Being named "Wilma" or "Eunice" and not liking it is different than being named "Reality Winner".
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Who mods up a hateful comment like that? Oh right.
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>the NSA has really bad security.
Bad? For a sting operation it worked OK, even though it snagged a very low level leaker. But they're making an example of her, so maybe this will give pause to any other Obama holdovers willing to compromise national security just because they didn't like the election results.
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As a Canadian, I did not like your election results either.
I am currently protesting by not buying oranges as long as Trump is president.
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As a Canadian, I did not like your election results either.
I am currently protesting by not buying oranges as long as Trump is president.
As a Canadian, you are free to be as un-American as you like, and no one will hold it against you. You also can't be a traitor for protesting US wars, or an election result, with illegal leaks. Carry on.
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As an American, I cannot be a traitor either for protesting US wars, criticizing our leaders, etc. In fact, it is a civic duty to criticize our leaders.
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Well, the wonderful thing about being American is the 1st Amendment, which says that Congress can't pass any laws limiting speech so there is no way that someone can go to jail for speaking or publishing something, unlike those socialist totalitarian countries.
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Canadian-Canadian.
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As a citizen I don't care who was president or what a party did. I hate partisans, they are the real disloyal ones here, country should come first before ideology or what team you voted for. But no apparently if you're more loyal to the country and its residents than to the president then you're a deep stater.
The real failure here is outsourcing to hiring private contractors to staff vital government functions. Who's going to jail over that?
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so maybe this will give pause to any other Obama holdovers willing to compromise national security just because they didn't like the election results
Dear Russian troll,
Get some new tricks.
Sincerely yours,
America
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Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
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Just imagine how bad things would be for her if she was a Reality Loser!
Re:Reality Winner (Score:5, Funny)
Just imagine how bad things would be for her if she was a Reality Loser!
Maybe she should change her name to Reality Check.
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Yup, and that name made me completely confused by the headline.
Re: Reality Winner (Score:5, Funny)
Her parents hate life, the name is proof enough but as you can see her upbringing obviously didn't do her any favors.
For all we know she was born to the Bites and married Mr. Winner.
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Yes she did, Sara Leigh used to be her name.
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Ignore that, damn you Nidi62
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
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Neither did DRUMF's. Ol small hands in chief's gonna go to PRISON for TREASON.
More likely, for financial crimes such as money laundering. Nobody in their right mind seriously believes he's not a traitor in thrall to the Russians, but making the charges stick would be a long shot. Financial malfeasance is a slam dunk.
Now cue Russian astroturfer downmods, and let this post form part of the indictment.
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Please go back to 5th grade and re-take your Civics class. There is no chance at all that Hillary will become President. There are no provisions for "do-overs" or mulligans in Federal law.
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Apparently, nobody learned anything from the Fawn Hall episode.
Re: Reality Winner (Score:2)
Hey , it worked for Sandy Burger and the Clintons!
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Apparently, NSA has hired the TSA to search crotches and anuses of everyone leaving the premises now.
Well, that is their strength.
Way to screw your source (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm still pissed at The Intercept. Their incompetence in handling the original documents is what blew their source. No one is going to leak to them now if they just turn around and give all the incriminating evidence to the government. They really should have known better.
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They really burned their source on this one. Admittedly, she should have copied it manually, but still. Any journalist should know better than to directly photograph and post such a document. Never, ever give anything sensitive to the Intercept after this Fiasco.
Classified report (Score:2)
I haven't been following this story. What exactly did she leak and why was it classified? Did the leak reveal NSA methods and capabilities? Aside from this, what harm would revealing Russian espionage efforts to the public? It makes them look like the shit that they are and gives people and organizations a heads-up about possible threats.
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Google is up there ^. This is the comments section of /.
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Not going to happen, but... (Score:2)
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You are right. But "if".
She had no chance in life (Score:2)
With that stupid name.
They really burned their source on this one? (Score:2)
Consider what was 'leaked', russia hacked voting machines, I suspect the whole thing as a put-up job. Maybe that was the whole point of the excercise, to disuade any legitimage whistleblowers from coming forward. We decoded the yellow
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Here's also hoping for a pardon for her from the "Orange Orangutan's" successor.
3 years might be sooner.
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Here's also hoping for a pardon for her from the "Orange Orangutan's" successor.
3 years might be sooner.
If so, then Pence will get to run as an incumbent.
Likely twice.
Seriously - imagine Trump without the baggage. 4% economic growth, record low black unemployment? Trump's got better approval ratings than Obama did at this point despite all that crazy incompetent Trump baggage. And Obama won reelection pretty easily. The current likely front-runner for the Democrats in 2020 - Elizabeth Warren - just fatally blew off her own foot, meaning the Democrat primaries are going to be a shitfest of who can run the
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Since we know now that The Russians! stole the election from Hillary she has to be the nominee again. Anyone opposing this or standing in her way is working with Putin too. She'll definitely win in 2020 now that we're aware of The Russians! conspiracy.
#HerTurnAgain2020!!!
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It might be sooner for her to get out after serving the 3 years in jail, than to wait until Trump has a successor, as that may be even longer than the 3 years (he might win again if Democrats can't pull their heads out of their arses).
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No reductions for Federal time unless she claims she's a drug addict and does that program. Otherwise she'll serve all of it (although the last few months might be in a halfway house)
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Here's also hoping for a pardon for her from the "Orange Orangutan's" successor.
So you're all in for Mike Pence? Good to know. I can already see the memes spreading from this brilliant decision by progressives.
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The next leader will probably be Putin though...
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Hopefully, she'll be out in 3 years... A true national heroine, alerting the media of foreign meddling in US elections.
There's a good chance she may pass the Trump family on the way in.
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Just like Comey, Clapper, Brennen, Hillary too.
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So when did those 3 leak items of national security, for the purposes of furthering their own agenda? We've already got a pretty clear case on the people I named. And I didn't even toss in Holder, though I should have. It's amazing how people are so suddenly worried on this, when they ignored more egregious abuses in the past.
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Well Washington lead a terrorist army against the sovereign nation and then became president of all the land.
You don't have much of a perspective of what would constitute treason in 1770, do you?
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Brilliant sarcasm!
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Here's hoping -- she's a national treasure and deserves a good, cushy job after being railroaded for doing her civic duty and reporting election fraud to the media.
No, you don't get to misuse classified information just to score political points.
(Well, unless you are already a major Democrat politician.)
Re: Meh (Score:2)
That information should have already been public.
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Agree and disagree (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's hoping -- she's a national treasure and deserves a good, cushy job after being railroaded for doing her civic duty and reporting election fraud to the media.
No, you don't get to misuse classified information just to score political points.
(Well, unless you are already a major Democrat politician.)
I'm ambivalent about this.
On the one hand, leaking classified info should be punished. I agree, and that part is fine.
Also, her intent wasn't "civic duty", it was apparently hatred of the president.
On the other hand, James Comey did *exactly* the same thing as Reality Winner, for *exactly* the same reasons, and hasn't been charged and got a book deal out of it. (Comey admitted to doing the leaking under oath. No need to cite here, it was in all the news and google is your friend.)
It's one of those "don't agree, but defend your right to do it" things. The law is nothing if it's based on social class. Either Comey should be charged, or Reality Winner should go free.
I don't think it's likely, but President Trump *should* pardon Reality Winner. Whistleblowers serve an important check on the workings of government, and should be encouraged within reason.
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Also, her intent wasn't "civic duty", it was apparently hatred of the president.
So your claim is she is insane, and hated the president for no reason? Maybe she's enraged by the color orange?
If you (thought) you'd discovered damning evidence about our president's involvement with a hostile foreign power. would you consider it your civic duty to expose it? Would at the same time "hate" the president for it?
Re:Agree and disagree (Score:5, Informative)
What classified info did Comey leak? He leaked a memo that was not classified. Leaking by itself is not illegal.
You don't get cushy jobs for doing civic duty (Score:2)
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Apparently there was no Russian meddling, so Reality Winner just leaked a fake document. How can you classify a fake document?
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I am really sick of the attitudes that angels sit on this side of the aisle and demons sit on that side of the aisle. We're all citizens here, not just some of us, and it is not traitorous or immoral to hold diverse political viewpoints. This country is in the most intolerant state I have ever seen it, and I am not young. I lived through the Nixon years, and I remember people from both parties in the same church getting along and being friends with each other, no matter where they stood on the issue. I
Re:Meh (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Meh (Score:2, Insightful)
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Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Meh (Score:4)
And if nothing comes out? Willing to agree there's really nothing there?
I'm not a big partisan political fanatic, but it seems to me that the evidence that has already come to light, accompanied by the lies that have already been told, would be more than sufficient to send any Democrat to the gallows.
So I'd have to answer your question with "No." If Congress did their job, what's out there now would already be enough to impeach Trump and the horse he rode in on.
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Emoluments clause violations, for one thing. No room to debate that at all. The Repubs would have screamed bloody murder if Obama had rented golf carts to his own Secret Service detail.... but then, to be fair, Obama was black.
As for the Russia stuff, we'll just have to wait and see what develops. We've been fed a lot of confusing lies about meetings, people, and events that we're told were totally legit. There's plenty of smoke but no fire. It's hard to breathe, and the thermometer on the wall is pegged
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WHAT election fraud? None has been shown, and President Obama [businessinsider.com] stated such, emphatically, well after the election.
He said no voter fraud. That isn't the same as election tampering.
Seriously, the ONLY fraud going on here is the belief there is a Trump/Russia connection. NOTHING has been shown. There's been a few convictions and plea bargains related to tax issues from years ago - and nothing from the Trump campaign. Nothing.
You're right. There's absolutely no evidence out there that Trump colluded with the Russians except the Manafort thing, and the Flynn thing, and the Papadopoulos pleading guilty thing, and the Roger Stone thing, and the Cohen thing, and the Kushner thing, and the Carter Page thing, and the Jeff Sessions things, and the Wilbur Ross thing, and the JD Gordon thing, and the Erik Prince thing, and the James Comey firing thing, and the Russian hack
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No. Manafort worked for dictators in the past is all. He's not a trustworthy guy, certainly not "great". But it has nothing to do with impeaching anyone, Manafort is just a thing that came up during an investigation. The investigation is not even about Trump, and it wouldn't be about Trump if Trump stopped twitting about it.
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There are plenty of legal contracts one might have to the mafia, and they are quite happy to prosecute inside the law as well as outside of it.
Do you have a point?
If you hold a legal contract with a member of the mafia, then you are beholden to that contract regardless of whether they are member of the mafia or your sweet grandmother. If they prosecute it outside the law, that's illegal. We all agree. What's that got to do with this case, which is a legal contract prosecuted inside the law?
Are you suggesting that it's okay to break a contract with someone you may think has committed an illegal act? Well, it's not. If you have doubts, go back and r
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No, while the NSA can be frustrating there are legitimate reason why a lot of information like that is classified and should not be leaked. Most notable is that once it was leaked that the NSA knew of the spear phishing attacks then Russia will change their tactics. But if the NSA knows about the attacks then they can counter them, monitor it to make sure nobody falls for it, and/or even use it as a channel to "leak" misinformation to the "enemy".
Espionage at the international level is far more complex and
Re:Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
You'd think after Snowden they would bring in and train servicemen/women instead of contractors.
The military expects you will not stay long at any particular post. You get your assignment, complete it, and move on to another assignment. The military does this because their main goal is fighting wars, not intelligence gathering. The various billets just round-out your knowledge but you're primarily there to shoot people.
For something like the NSA, this is pretty bad. Because it takes quite a while to build up the expertise they need, and the servicemen/women rotate out too quickly. So they use contractors because they can stay in the same position for many years.
You could argue that they should use civilian government employees, since they too can stay in the same position for many years. But that runs into a big problem: pay. There's a formal pay scale for government employees, and it caps out very far below what an NSA contractor can make in the private sector (even if they were not working as a government contractor).
Raising the pay scale means raising it across the entire government, so that's not a good option. There is a way to have exceptions to the standard pay scale, but they're not easy to push through and having something the size of the NSA operating almost entirely on exceptions is not workable. So now we're down to requiring Congress and/or OMB creating a separate pay scale for computer professions that is significantly higher than the normal one for computer professionals. Which, aside from the massive bureaucratic hurdles in doing that, would result in a lot of non-computer-professional government employees trying to switch their classification to this pay scale so they can get paid more.
Or they just use contractors.
As for whether or not that would prevent leaks, service men and women also leak. You mentioned Snowden, but there's also Manning.
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Contracting has so many failures inherent to it. You don't get to fully interview and vet contractors, you're often told to just accept them as-is (at least in the business world). They don't receive the same level of training as actual employees, in regards to safety, security, procedures, etc (and as far as contracting for the military they also aren't subject to the uniform military code of justice, ala the Blackwater embarrassment). Contractors also cost more in almost every case I have seen (other t
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The problem is too many military officers don't want to cause a problem and know they will be gone in a short time and civilian managers also will rarely bring up the pro
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Ah yes, servicemen/women, like Bradley/Chelsea Manning. How'd that work out for data security?
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What I don't get is why they keep using contractors.
Because people don't like paying taxes and it's cheaper to hire outside, private, specialized firms than staff up within the NSA.
Assuming of course that there's some magical line between contractors and NSA employees that makes it impossible for the latter to leak information ***cough***Snowden***cough**.
Re:And Intel-worshiping #resist is silent (Score:4, Informative)
Because the documents she leaked showed nothing unusual. The Russians! meddling involved supporting and financing more Hillary causes than Trump.
Re:Too Lenient (Score:2)
FIFY
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nope, you can't be a contractor for the NSA and leak classified data. that's the law. don't be surprised if you do that and get hard time. she was imprisoned for breaking the law.