"Reality Winner never really had a chance to explain herself. After the young whistleblower leaked a classified 2017 National Security Agency bulletin about Russian election-meddling attempts to the Intercept, whose botched reporting allowed the feds to track her down, the perception of the otherwise low-key Winner escaped all containment. The government, which charged her under the historically censorious Espionage Act, painted her as a terrorist sympathizer who desired to sabotage the system from within."
"And to this day, even though her federal incarceration is finally over, Winner's not allowed to earn any money from the promotion of her now famous name and story; as she told Texas Public Radio, she can't even get a free copy of her own memoir, I Am Not Your Enemy, which published Tuesday. Not to mention that she had to submit the initial draft to her old employers at the NSA for screening."
"A first-time author earning no royalties, the now-33-year-old Winner writes clearly and sharply about her extraordinary life and addresses the pressing questions of just why she did things as she did-why she printed and mailed that document to the Intercept, why she didn't immediately demand a lawyer when the FBI came knocking, why it's taken so long for her to correct the record."
Reality Winner leaked a classified 2017 NSA bulletin about Russian election-meddling to the Intercept. The Intercept's reporting flaws allowed authorities to identify her. Federal prosecutors charged her under the Espionage Act and portrayed her as a terrorist sympathizer; pundits on both sides vilified her as a traitor. The transcript of her FBI arrest became a Broadway play and a film. Her federal sentence ended but she remains barred from profiting from her name and story and could not obtain a free copy of her memoir. She had to submit her initial manuscript draft to NSA reviewers before publication.
Read at Slate Magazine
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