Archived Projects – Page 2 – Courage Foundation

The indictment of Reality Winner may be the opening salvo in the Trump Administration’s war on leaks. Reality is facing a serious charge under the Espionage Act for allegedly sharing an NSA report on Russian attempts to compromise the 2016 US Presidential election.

Support Alleged NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner

On June 5th, 2017, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the arrest of 25-year-old Reality Leigh Winner, a federal contractor in Augusta, Georgia (USA), on charges of allegedly sharing classified information with a news outlet. Winner is alleged to have shared an NSA report on Russian military intelligence’s hacking efforts during the final days of the 2016 election to The Intercept, which published a story shortly before the DOJ announcement. Find the Reality Winner Support Group here.

Winner worked as a translator for the US Air Force for six years before taking a job as a contractor with Pluribus International Corporation. She has been charged with mishandling and releasing classified information under the Espionage Act, a felony charge that carries a potential 10 years in prison.

Winner appeared in Federal court in Georgia on June 8th, where she pled not guilty and was denied bail.

The Intercept article based on the leaked NSA report reveals that the GRU (Russian military intelligence) attempted to infiltrate the software of VR Systems, an American voting machine supplier in eight states and sent phishing emails to over 100 local election officials in the days leading up to the 2016 Presidential election.

The Espionage Act carries a low bar for conviction; prosecutors merely have to prove the “potential” for harm, rather than actual damage. The Obama Administration made extensive use of this statute in its own aggressive pursuit of whistleblowers. Furthermore, the Act does not allow defendants to argue a public interest defense. If Reality did leak the report cited in The Intercept article, it’s clear that she intended to inform the American public with obviously newsworthy, valuable information that we should thank her for disclosing.

Had Reality Winner been a high-ranking official, it’s safe to say she wouldn’t be in this position. Those in the highest places disclose politically useful Secret information to journalists all the time with complete impunity. Now that a lower-level contractor has allegedly released information the government didn’t want out, she’ll feel the full force of the law.

Reality Winner needs widespread support as she faces an administration that has openly declared war on journalists and their sources. Please donate to our emergency defense fund and spread the word about Winner’s case.

The United States Department of Justice has accused computer science student Justin Liverman of being associated with Crackas with Attitude (CWA), the group that claimed to have accessed emails from the AOL account of CIA Director John Brennan in late 2015 and brought to widespread attention the vulnerability of a variety of US government computer systems to social engineering attacks.

On 8 September 2016 the FBI arrested Justin. At the time, media reports noted that Justin had gained admission to the Pentagon’s first bug bounty programme, using his skills to secure government systems from bad actors.

Of five individuals arrested on suspicion of involvement with CWA, he is one of only two – both US nationals – who are facing charges. Justin was expected to be indicted on 28 December 2016 and arraigned in early January in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virgina for violating the notorious Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He urgently needs your support to pay for his legal representation and expenses.

At a time when standards for the storage of sensitive government information – and high ranking individuals’ compliance with those standards – are the subject of significant and justified public concern, CWA exposed the vulnerability of even the most senior US government officials to non-technical social engineering attacks. In October 2015, selected emails from John Brennan’s AOL account were published by WikiLeaks as the Brennan Emails and include drafts of policy documents, legislative drafts, contact details and, most sensitively, Director Brennan’s background security clearance questionnaire.

Members of CWA claimed to have gained access to a range of US government and law enforcement information by persuading individuals to hand over credentials over the course of late 2015 and early 2016, including the Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal (LEEP), which shares resources between law enforcement, intelligence and other US government agencies. Director Brennan admitted that CWA had shown up just how vulnerable government officials were to attacks that fell well below the sophistication of nation state actors, in part through the use of obsolete online services. In turn, the FBI was obliged to remind government and law enforcement employees about the importance of exercising basic information security standards across their personal email and social media accounts.

Since Feburary 2016, five people have been arrested in relation to CWA – three in the UK and two, including Justin Liverman, in the United States. Following his arrest in September 2016, Justin is facing potential CFAA charges in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. He is represented by Tor Ekeland, Jay Leiderman and Maria Medvin and urgently needs funds to pay for his legal defence and expenses ahead of his forthcoming court dates.