Reality Winner has pleaded not guilty to an espionage offense for allegedly
leaking a top secret NSA document to The Intercept. A federal judge has
denied her request for bail. (photo: Facebook)
On the Trump Administration's Recent Arrest of an Alleged Journalistic
Source
By Edward Snowden, Freedom of the Press Foundation
09 June 17
The Justice Department released an indictment of twenty five year-old NSA
contractor Reality Winner yesterday, just a few hours after the Intercept
posted a story based on a top secret document that described how the NSA
believes Russian actors tried to hack into US voting infrastructure. Much is
unknown, as the public is made to depend upon the potentially unreliable
claims of government prosecutors, while Winner is held in jail without any
contact with the public.
What we do know is clear: Winner is accused of serving as a journalistic
source for a leading American news outlet about a matter of critical public
importance. For this act, she has been charged with violating the Espionage
Act-a World War I era law meant for spies-which explicitly forbids the jury
from hearing why the defendant acted, and bars them from deciding whether
the outcome was to the public's benefit. This often-condemned law provides
no space to distinguish the extraordinary disclosure of inappropriately
classified information in the public interest-whistleblowing-from the
malicious disclosure of secrets to foreign governments by those motivated by
a specific intent to harm to their countrymen.
The prosecution of any journalistic source without due consideration by the
jury as to the harm or benefit of the journalistic activity is a fundamental
threat to the free press. As long as a law like this remains on the books in
a country that values fair trials, it must be resisted.
No matter one's opinions on the propriety of the charges against her, we
should all agree Winner should be released on bail pending trial. Even if
you take all the government allegations as true, it's clear she is neither a
threat to public safety nor a flight risk. To hold a citizen incommunicado
and indefinitely while awaiting trial for the alleged crime of serving as a
journalistic source should outrage us all.
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