Petition to the DOJ: Declassify the ‘Winner Document’!
Air Force veteran Reality Leigh Winner has been charged under the Espionage Act for leaking a report documenting cyber attacks upon U.S. election infrastructure. This report set off a wave of concern and scrutiny regarding the security of the upcoming 2018 elections, and has spurred federal, state, and local officials to strengthen the integrity of our democracy.
Despite the public benefit of the released information, Winner’s defense now faces onerous restrictions. So far, the court has ruled that the classified document and all related articles, including public media reports, are not admissible as evidence to the jury. This will effectively deny the jury an opportunity to not only understand the impact of the document, but the substance of the case itself. This significantly denies Ms. Winner a fair and open trial.
We ask the Department of Justice to allow the defense access to all of the evidence and relevant documents necessary for a fair trial.
Courage to Resist will attempt to keep signers of the Reality Winner petition up-to-date with periodic news and alerts from her family and attorney. You will be able to opt out at any time.
Why alleged whistle-blower Reality Winner deserves support
By Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist. June 8, 2017
Reality Winner is a 25-year-old Air Force veteran who was arrested in Augusta, Georgia on June 3rd. She allegedly released classified NSA documents to The Intercept, which were the basis for a story about Russian hacking efforts against US election systems leading up to last year’s presidential election. Reality is currently in the Lincoln County Jail in Georgia, and faces up to ten years in prison.
Reality Winner—yes, that is her given legal name—did the right thing, and she should be defended.
Reality allegedly leaked information regarding attempted interference in an election, tampering that many believe assisted in Donald Trump’s presidential win—despite earning nearly four million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. The documents published by The Intercept only confirm earlier accounts of US election hacking attempts and, given the current administration’s extreme antagonisms against facts, the release of these documents was clearly in the public interest. Like the vast majority of government documents that are hidden from public view, these reports should have been declassified by now anyway.
Now Trump’s own Department of Justice has targeted Reality. It’s a sinister move, but on the other hand, simply a continuation Obama’s unprecedented zeal in prosecuting whistle-blowers. Trump inherited an atrocious War on Leaks, and Reality is the latest victim of that war. Her arrest is a signal to the world, and the four million other Americans with access to classified information: Only sanctioned leaks benefiting the government will be tolerated.
There’s a striking hypocrisy to Trump’s crackdown. Less than a month ago the President was criticized for carelessly leaking classified information to Russian officials during a White House meeting. We now know this information concerned a bomb that is being developed by ISIS. This is standard operating procedure: lawmakers have no issue leaking classified information if it somehow furthers their interest, but they aggressively prosecute citizens who expose actual wrongdoing.
I believe that Reality Winner’s possible actions should be understood within the context of recent heroic whistleblowing. Shortly before leaving office, Barack Obama commuted the remaining sentence of US Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who was facing 27 more years in prison for exposing war crimes and corruption. Edward Snowden, who leaked information about our government’s massive spying program, was granted asylum in Russia but faces espionage charges back home. Just like Manning, it seems that Reality was able to see the inner workings of the United States’ war machine.
She served in the Air Force from 2013 until early this year, working as a linguist. Like Snowden, she would have had a better view than most as to how our security state works. Up until last week, she was a military defense contractor with the Pluribus International Corporation in the suburbs outside of Augusta, Georgia, and had Top Secret security clearance.
The US government has spent tens of millions of dollars in better auditing capabilities since the disclosures by Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. Those that would rather keep the public in the dark as to what their government is doing with their tax dollars and in their name, have redoubled their efforts to identify whistle-blowers much more quickly. Winner’s arrest was facilitated by the government’s increased ability to more easily identify the relatively small number of people that recently accessed documents in question as well as the yellow-colored, nearly-invisible micro dots that most color printers today use to include a printer’s serial number and time stamp on each printed page. This appears to have contributed to the focus on Reality Winner.
Reality is expected to plead not guilty to charges against her today. We don’t know exactly why she allegedly released the NSA documents to the press, but we do have some insight into her views about the world. Her social media accounts show a woman who, like a clear majority of Americans, is critical of Donald Trump. She has also voiced support for Edward Snowden, and opposition to the US fabricating a reason to attack Iran.
According to The Intercept, [Winner’s leak] “ratchets up the stakes of the ongoing investigations into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives . . . If collusion can ultimately be demonstrated – a big if at this point – then the assistance on Russia’s part went beyond allegedly hacking email to serve a propaganda campaign, and bled into an attack on U.S. election infrastructure itself.”
We are talking about a potentially monumental story that might require prosecutions, but Reality Winner shouldn’t be the one who ends up in jail. While the details of the story continue to unfold, by all indications she deserves our support, and the release of these documents should be celebrated.
Important links
Gofundme to support Reality Winner & Family. Note that Reality’s mother voiced support for this effort in a June 7 Facebook post.
Reality Winner, N.S.A. Contractor Accused of Leak, Was Undone by Trail of Clues. New York Times. June 6, 2017
“I fully support the right of US military personnel who, in acts of conscience, refuse to go to a war of aggression, a war crime. … I proudly support those who take such a stand.”
We need some form of immunity for patriotic citizens who at their own risk expose wrongly classified cover-up information about government wrong-doing. This should codified in some sort of procedure or law, not be left to the whims of political circumstance.
Complete BS. This woman is a DNC operative.
I’ve seen nonsense about her being a “fake person” based on her quirky given name, that she’s an Israeli agent (for no coherent reason whatsoever), and now you claim she’s a DNC agent. Like 2/3rds of Americans, she was critical of Donald Trump. I’d be concerned about anyone not critical of the orange one at this point. She apparently was a young person who saw something, and decided to say something. It’s not that complicated.
She took an oath. If she were not a democrat, do you think she would have said something? … lets say the Russian govt. did hack our computer system. Do you suppose that would be much easier through someone’s private server rather than protected government computers? …
I fail to see why members of all US political parties would not, should not, be equally concerned by the integrity of our election systems. In my oped, I make a passing reference to Clinton having received nearly 3 million votes more the “winner”. What I was getting at with that this was an extremely close election–decided by about 25,000 people in each of three states. So, it really wouldn’t have taken all that much to tip the scales, so to speak. For the record, I have never voted for HRC for anything. Some folks rightly point out that there is no evidence that the Russians succeeded in doing this; however, shouldn’t we learn from this and be demanding better security for our election systems? And while we’re at it, how are our elections still run by partisan county officials, in districts that elected representatives are allowed to draw themselves in an effort to shop for their preferred voters?
And what do we think about this?
NSA Leaker ‘Reality Winner’ Already Feels Like A Ham-Handed PsyOp
To be honest, the conspiracy stuff reminds me very much of the beginning of our campaign to support Chelsea Manning. There was a website that had “proof” that Chelsea didn’t actually exist, and another reasoned that because the documents she released didn’t contain UFO-related evidence, they were not real. Now folks seem be hinging their arguments on Trump’s Justice Department being “too smart” to go after a sympathetic young woman with a quirky name. The real PsyOps are the online arguments trying to vilify a jailed whistle-blower who allegedly shared classified information that should have been public in the first place. How the hell is exposing weaknesses in our election system a partisan issue in America today? If folks back away from supporting her because they think shadowy forces are pulling all of the strings here, then the PsyOps will have won.
The United States government has no right to tell people what they can or cannot tell others. This whole concept of classifying everything to hide the truth from the American people is the government’s way of violating the citizens right of free speech. The United States government wants to tell everybody what they can and cannot do, where they can and cannot go, and with whom they can and cannot associate. It’s the government’s way of controlling the lives of its citizens while taking away all their rights.