Poll of the Day > Why is Reality Winner still in prison?

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https://theweek.com/articles/966108/end-war-whistleblowers

Of all the candidates for a pardon, Reality Winner's case is most obviously convincing, though as yet has not gotten the wide attention it deserves. She did indeed leak classified documents to The Intercept (which horribly botched its security protocols and basically handed her to the FBI, though she probably would have been caught eventually), which is against the law. But the exposure of these documents did not even slightly harm national security.

Here's what seems to have happened. Winner listened to the Intercepted podcast in early 2017, including one episode in which former Intercept co-founder and journalist Glenn Greenwald expressed skepticism about the idea that Russia had hacked the DNC and John Podesta to boost Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign. Therefore she sent the publication classified material showing the NSA had evidence that not only was Russia behind those hacks, it had actually successfully hacked into an election software vendor. For that she was sentenced to five years and three months in prison. It was the longest sentence in history for simply leaking to the press and very obviously related to Trump's desire to punish people who pointed out his connection to the Russia hack.

Any reasonable American should favor her release because the public has a right to know when U.S. intelligence agencies think a hostile foreign power is trying to compromise America's electoral machinery. At bottom, she was simply doing what the NSA is supposed to do protect the country. Indeed, as Kerry Howley (a journalist who has been following the Winner story closely) points out, when The Intercept published its story on the leak, the federal agency in charge of assisting state election authorities put out a bulletin informing state governments what had happened for the first time. Several states were outraged that they hadn't been informed earlier, and justifiably so. It's not the first time that intelligence agencies' compulsive secrecy and over-classification has gotten in the way of doing their purported jobs.

In any case, all the important details Winner leaked were later published in the Mueller report. Her action was carried out in good faith; she did no harm and at least some good. And anyone who simply believes in proportional punishment must agree that, even on the harshest possible reading of events, Winner has already paid for what she did and then some. She should be pardoned immediately.

Biden's been in office for a month now. Obviously petty vindictive Trump wasn't going to release the person that revealed to the public that Russia helped him win. WTF is Biden's excuse to not do anything?

I'm sorry but can we please address the elephant in the room?

her parents should be the ones in prison. what kind of asshole names their child like that.

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TheOkHornedRat posted...

her parents should be the ones in prison. what kind of asshole names their child like that.

You'd think they'd be happy just having the last name "Winner" and go w/ normal first names b/c the last name will already stand out anyway.

Because the Obama/Biden administration had a long policy of clemency towards and appreciation of whistleblowers... oh wait, I'm thinking of another administration that didn't actively torture a whistleblower and which didn't raid news outlet offices while tapping journalists phones to try to track down whistleblowers, things that even Nixon didn't have the balls to try. (And those are just proven allegations.)


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