Five Years Jail Term For NSA leaker

A former NSA translator who leaked a classified report into attempted Russian hacking of US voting systems has been sentenced to 63 months behind bars.

Reality Winner received the longest sentence ever imposed for the unauthorized release of government information to the media. Her defenders argue she should be hailed as a whistleblower who performed an important public service.

Back in May 2017 and just a few months in her job at America’s National Security Agency, Winner printed out a top-secret dossier that detailed attempts by Kremlin agents to hack into US voting systems – and smuggled it out of the security agency in her underwear. She then mailed it to Snowden fan club newsletter  The Intercept, which later published the five-page report.

Winner confessed she acted out of anger over what was happening to her country, one of the world’s leading democracies. At the time, speculation was rife about Russian interference in the US presidential elections, and the same morning she printed off the report, President Trump fired FBI director James Comey in a move most consider an effort to shut down investigations into that meddling.