By Trevor Timm
Whistleblower Reality Winner was officially sentenced to 63
months in prison on Thursday, after a federal judge rubber-stamped a
plea deal already agreed to by the prosecution and Winner’s lawyers. As
the prosecution acknowledged, it is the longest sentence for a
journalist’s source in federal court history.
The defense agreed to the plea deal in part to bring closure to
Winner and her family. Her mother, Billie Winner-Davis, said when the
plea was first announced that it was in her daughter’s “best interest”
since the Espionage Act does not afford her any public interest defense.
But it should not bring closure to the crucial issues raised by this
case, namely, the Justice Department’s contention that “national
security” claims by the executive branch can never be challenged; that
the executive branch has the sole authority to decide when information
should be secret; and that the DOJ can prosecute journalists’ sources
for “harming” national security with no public evidence whatsoever.
At issue in Winner’s case is a document she leaked to a news outlet. The Intercept published an article on June 5, 2017
about a five-page National Security Agency report that detailed how
alleged Russian hackers targeted election vendors with phishing attacks
in an attempt to access voters rolls in several states. The Intercept was not aware of the identity of the source who provided the document, though other news organizations connected it to Winner.
Click here for the full article.
Source: The Intercept_
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