Reality Winner, a Pluribus International Corporation employee working for the US government, is facing 10 years in prison for publishing a Secret document with concrete evidence of Russian hacking of the US electoral system. The search hints described in this particular secret account (the "top secret") of the US National Security Agency was a computer company VR Systems that produces electronic voting software and equipment that is being implemented in 8 US states. In addition to that, the targets of the so-called "Spear-phishing" attacks were e-mail accounts of more than a hundred local election officials, just a few days before the November presidential election last year.
What the report says
The report was released by the Intercept site, an online media organization known for publishing and analyzing secret documents on the US mass media surveillance system that was sparked by "whistleblower" Edward Snowden, who in the meantime received asylum in Russia. The authors of the article "The Top Secret NSA Report Explains the Russian Hacking Challenge a few Days Before the 2016 Election" for Intercept said that a document dated May 5 this year, is "the most detailed report by the US government about Russian interference in the elections that came out so far." The NSA report "unambiguously states" that "the Russian military intelligence agency, specifically the Russian Chief Intelligence General Staff (GRU), conducted the cyber-attacks described in the document," Intercept writes.
Of course, such a conclusion directly dispels Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent allegation that the Russians have never been involved in foreign state-level elections.
Winner was caught because the Intercept sent a document to the NSA
However, what may be more interesting than the report itself is the result of its publication.
Reality Winner was arrested just hours after Intercept published an article and she was charged with the release of secret material from a state institution and sending this material to the news media. Of course, it was just about the NSA and Intercept report, whose negligent treatment with the document, apparently, revealed the source.
As ABC News reports, the Intercept is a secret document that Winner received in print, scanned it and sent it to the NSA itself to gain insight into its authenticity. Two days later, on June 1, the FBI opened an investigation into the "leak", in the course of which it was found that the document was printed, that only six employees had printed this document, and that Winner communicated with the Intercept only by email. When examined by the FBI, Winner admitted that she "deliberately identified and printed the secret intelligence report."
Intercept claimed that there is no much solid evidence of Russian interference
Winner sent them a document just one week after Intercept on September 22 held an online slideshow in which one of Jeremy Scahill's commentators commented "there is a huge amount of hysteria and premature conclusions about all these things with Russia," and second editor Glen Greenwald added that "there is not much solid evidence" about Russian hacking related to the elections.
President Donald Trump, who often heavily attacked the media and the state services due to the leak of confidential data that does not support him and announced that the sources will be punished, may be satisfied - at least one such source has been caught.
