Inside Reality Winner

December 22, 2017 12:24 PM

‘The World’s Biggest Terrorist Has a Pikachu Bedspread’
posted by maggieb (27 comments total)

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.

A thoughtful rebel. I relate to this so much.
posted by complaina at 12:39 PM on December 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

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.

I'll bet they still are.
posted by Obscure Reference at 12:45 PM on December 22, 2017 [7 favorites]

I'd vote for her for President.
posted by biogeo at 1:18 PM on December 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

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.”

Huh, I guess this means that a handful of women I know with technical interest and disposable money are actually secret terrorists.
posted by Donald Trump Sex Nightmare at 1:22 PM on December 22, 2017 [22 favorites]

I wonder if anyone would've cared about the leak after trump fired Comey and brought all this shit out to light anyway.

Probably she still would have been arrested, in my opinion.
posted by thelonius at 1:41 PM on December 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

Huh, I guess this means that a handful of women I know with technical interest and disposable money are actually secret terrorists.

No, but...they are of interest.
posted by Four Ds at 2:19 PM on December 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

This reads like one of the horror stories I was brought up on which showed why Communism was a horrible, unredeemable system.
posted by clawsoon at 2:27 PM on December 22, 2017 [21 favorites]

The very definition of moral behavior is to instinctively do the right thing, doing good for others, without weighing the consequences first.

Sincere hopes that she somehow emerges from this with a semblance of a life. Would that I could have her instincts and courage if I was somehow in similar shoes.
posted by delfin at 3:54 PM on December 22, 2017 [13 favorites]

The very definition of moral behavior is to instinctively do the right thing, doing good for others, without weighing the consequences first.

If you weigh the consequences first and still do the right thing even knowing what you’re in for, it’s heroic.
posted by chavenet at 4:03 PM on December 22, 2017 [8 favorites]

She seems awesome. How do we help her?
posted by samthemander at 4:03 PM on December 22, 2017 [13 favorites]

I had almost forgotten about her. This is a fascinating picture of a fascinating woman. I spent the whole article trying to imagine what it's like to have a brain like that.
posted by bendy at 5:25 PM on December 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

Fantastic article!

“Are you a reporter?” asked the guard. [...] 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.

Can anybody elaborate on the legality of this?

Some heroes to add to the list?

There are reasons notorious leakers have stopped [using the "procedures and practices of the intelligence community"] 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.

It would be great to gather a list of people punished for calling attention to the transgressions of the security state.

The other thing that jumped out at me, though:

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.

As horrendous as the security state is--add Trump to the mix and it gets pretty terrifying--the rest of our society is pretty fucked too.
posted by Chuckles at 6:22 PM on December 22, 2017 [19 favorites]

I'd vote for her for President.

Sadly, she wouldn't make it to the first debate. Too straightforward.
posted by Coventry at 7:07 PM on December 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

This story is heartbreaking. And I don’t know what to do. I feel for Reality. And I have to think that the journalist responsible for her present condition must find another job. I mean, while I can empathize with Reality, I think the fucker that slipped up and put her in jail should suffer more.
posted by valkane at 8:34 PM on December 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

The transcript of them FBI interrogation is pretty fascinating for the way they establish rapport with her and persuade her to confess.
posted by Coventry at 9:04 PM on December 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

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

Sort of curious: do many jails accommodate gluten intolerance?
posted by Coventry at 9:21 PM on December 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

She seems awesome. How do we help her?

Legal defense fund, Amnesty International style letter campaign to try to mitigate the solitary confinement and other human rights abuses she will be at risk of in prison, and campaigning for a pardon come to mind
posted by thelonius at 4:27 AM on December 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

Great article and thank you for posting; before this I felt compassion for her, but now I really, really feel compassion - and heartache - for what she is going through.

Noted that The Intercept’s parent company is contributing to her legal defense fund. Can any lawyers here explain if that would protect The Intercept, its parent companies, and/or its employees from any civil suits Reality could later bring against them? Would they likely ask her to sign a release of liability in exchange for money to fund her legal defense against these criminal charges?
posted by nightrecordings at 8:20 AM on December 23, 2017

We know Matthew Cole and Richard Esposito screwed over both Reality Winner and John Kiriakou, so they have no business dealing with sensitive sources ever again, but..

There were printer logs that revealed she printed the leaked document. Jeffrey Sterling was convicted based merely on having spoken to James Risen over the phone several times. It'll be easier for them to convict her on more charges thanks to Cole and Esposito, but they'd likely go after her regardless.

Ain't much chance the orange fascist will pardon her, but some a future president may. Assuming her trial is a jury trial, then campaigns supporting her might help the defense gauge what approaches garner the most sympathy, or otherwise influence jury deliberations, such that they convict on fewer counts.

In that case, she might get off with a "lite sentence" like the 30 months John Kiriakou served for his remarkably careful disclosure of the CIA's torture program that largely managed to avoid violating any laws and made it very hard for them to charge him.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:32 AM on December 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

I find it quite fascinating that around 1.4 million people have top secret clearance, but there are only a handful of leakers. Quite disciplined.
posted by hoskala at 2:58 PM on December 24, 2017

You could see it that way, or you could see it as a sign that the investigation of and enforcement against leaks is woefully ineffective.
posted by Coventry at 3:47 PM on December 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'd think most disenchanted people simply quit to take jobs elsewhere in the economy. Reality Winner tried but she was hindered by her lack of a university degree.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:57 AM on December 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

Thanks for linking this informative and exceptionally well-written article. In the glut of horrifying and shocking news post-election, I barely took in Reality Winner except to note that her name was Reality Winner which contributed significantly to the whole, We're Living in a Shitty Sci Fi Movie feel of it all. Such a great piece summarizing what she did, who she was, and what the context of her imprisonment is.

Also, I'm going to keep my eye out on this author, Kerry Howley. From her archives she seems interested in stories about women and ethics. This old piece on body parts selling is definitely fascinating. What a terrific writer.
posted by latkes at 9:20 AM on December 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

Reality Winner tried but she was hindered by her lack of a university degree.

It made me cringe when the article said that she had decided that a degree was a "piece of paper" that just proved that you hadn't had a job or done something meaningful with your youth. I've had several friends who were highly intelligent, but who had no undergrad degree, and I have seen how it just closed them out of opportunities. While it perhaps remains possible for talented people to do well in software, at least for a while, with no degree, our society in general has clamped down tight on credentialism. This is of course one of the binds that younger people (rightly) complain of: they are fucked in the workplace without a college degree, no matter how capable they actually are, but the fantastic expense and need to go into debt for one also leaves them in a bad place, with no guarantee of being able to get a job that pays well enough to service their debt.
posted by thelonius at 9:29 AM on December 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror
posted by jeffburdges at 5:30 PM on January 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

Quoting myself: It would be great to gather a list of people punished for calling attention to the transgressions of the security state.

An oldish, but fantastic article linked in another thread: Long before Edward Snowden went public, John Crane was a top Pentagon official fighting to protect NSA whistleblowers. Instead their lives were ruined – and so was his.
posted by Chuckles at 5:18 PM on January 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

Ain't exactly happy with this next article, like I doubt Sibel Edmonds has any recent FBI contacts, but still..

FBI Whistleblower on Pierre Omidyar and His Campaign to Neuter Wikileaks

In particular, there is no need for so much conspiracy theory here. It's perfectly plausible that Pierre Omidyar wants to finance real journalism because he thinks "journalism" is good, and that he recognizes Glen Greenwald as among the best, most realistic, and most honest journalists in the English speaking world, but that..

Pierre Omidyar's real views on whistle blowing remain highly problematic, due mostly to his being rich and well connected. I think this impacts the Reality Winner case in that people like Matthew Cole and Richard Esposito will continue being treated like esteemed journalists despite being technically incompetent to safely manage a source.

As for Snowden docs, I do not follow DecipherYou because you cannot speed read youtube videos but they are still finding bits they consider worth highlighting.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:42 AM on January 19, 2018