Truth Winner: NSA contractor sentenced to 5 years over leak

Reality Leigh Winner, 26, poses in a picture posted to her Instagram account Symbol copyright Reuters Symbol caption Winner has been sentenced to SIXTY THREE months in jail

A former Nationwide Security Company (NSA) contractor who admitted passing best secret data to the media has been sentenced to more than five years.

Reality Winner, 26, had faced as much as 10 years in prison, however this was once lowered to SIXTY THREE months underneath a plea deal.

She was once arrested remaining yr for leaking an NSA file on alleged Russian meddling within the 2016 US election.

Her sentence is pronounced to be the longest given for passing personal subject matter to a media outlet.

Winner used to be working as a linguist at an NSA facility in Georgia when she used to be detained in June 2017 and charged below the Espionage Act.

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Media captionReality Winner’s mother says her daughter served her us of a and is a “good person”

She was stuck after investigators spotted that the leaked file perceived to were folded or creased, indicating that it have been “revealed after which carried out of a secured house”, in keeping with an FBI affidavit in improve of the arrest warrant.

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Investigators decided that Winner was one in all simplest six people to have printed the report.

Examination of her electronic mail on her table computer additional found out that she had exchanged emails with news outlet, the indictment mentioned.

“I misused my clearance to print out the report,” Winner advised a hearing in June, according to Fox News.

“I did so of my own free will.”

What did the leaked documents allege?

The leaked document, believed to had been handed to news website online The Intercept, alleged that Moscow’s army intelligence services and products had tried cyber-assaults on no less than one US voting software provider days sooner than the 2016 US presidential election.

It additionally accused Russia of sending phishing emails to greater than 100 local election officials.

However, there was no recommendation in the report that the hackers have been successful.

The files had been it seems that marked for declassification not prior to May 2042.

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