Thread by @petersterne

Reality Winner has accepted a plea deal. She was charged with violating the Espionage Act, the draconian 101-year-old law used to prosecute journalists' sources. couragefound.org/2018/06/realit…

Here's what her mother said about Reality's decision to plead guilty:

Winner (allegedly) sent journalists at @theintercept a copy of a classified NSA document showing that Russian hackers tried to access state election systems in 2016.

The Justice Department arrested her & charged her with violating the Espionage Act. pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/…

The Espionage Act, passed in 1917, was originally intended to be used against foreign spies who stole sensitive military information. But almost immediately, it was used to prosecute anti-war protesters. Later, it was used against whistleblowers. freedom.press/news/americas-…

When @DanielEllsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and Washington Post, showing that the US gov had lied to the American people about the Vietnam War, the Nixon administration tried to prosecute Ellsberg under the Espionage Act. freedom.press/news/how-espio…

During the Bush & Obama administrations, the Justice Department began an aggressive campaign to use the Espionage Act to prosecute government employees who talked to journalists about classified programs. freedom.press/news/obama-use…

Under Trump, the Justice Department has been even more aggressive about prosecuting journalists' sources under the Espionage Act.

Reality Winner was arrested in June 2017 and charged with violating the Espionage Act. She was denied bail & has been in jail since her arrest.

Reality Winner wanted to fight the charges against her. Her argument: she just gave info about the Russian hacking of the 2016 election — which isn't exactly a secret — to journalists, so they could tell the American people. It's not like she gave nuclear codes to Iran.

The problem is that the Espionage Act doesn't really make a distinction between the two. It just prohibits the unauthorized disclosure of information related to the national defense. It doesn't matter whether the leak actually harms national security or is in the public interest.

To convict you under the Espionage Act, federal prosecutors don't need to prove that your leak actually put anyone in danger. They just need to prove that the info you leaked was classified, because classified information is, by definition, considered potentially harmful.

Reality Winner's lawyers tried to argue that the document she leaked wasn't particularly sensitive or dangerous, since Russian election hacking was hardly a secret.

But the gov prohibited her lawyers from even Googling info about Russian hacking. theintercept.com/2018/06/03/rea…

Bill Leonard is the former head of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), in charge of the classification program. He thinks the gov has an over-classification problem and was an expert witness for Reality Winner's legal defense. emptywheel.net/2018/03/10/rea…

For more than a year, Reality Winner insisted on fighting the case, hoping to clear her name and to set a precedent that the Espionage Act should not be used against sources who share classified information with journalists to inform the public without damaging national security.

But it costs a lot of time and money to fight an Espionage Act prosecution. At some point, when you've been held in jail for over a year, when you know that the law is so unjust that any defense you offer will be considered irrelevant — it makes sense to take a plea deal.

UPDATE: Winner, who's been held in jail for last 13 months, pleads guilty to one count under the Espionage Act (specifically 18 USC § 793(e)). She agrees to prison sentence of 5 years and 3 months, plus 3 years of supervised release. theintercept.com/2018/06/26/rea…