Author: Nathan
In October, accused NSA whistleblower Reality Winner was denied bail on highly politicized grounds that cast doubt on Judge Brian Epps’ ability to hear her case in an impartial manner. A panel of appeal judges has now upheld Judge Epps’ ruling, meaning Reality will remain detained until her trial, which is currently scheduled for next month.
Reality Winner, an NSA contractor who was arrested in June 2017, is facing an Espionage Act charge for allegedly passing classified material to media outlet The Intercept. The documents in question summarise the NSA’s view at the time of evidence suggesting Russia’s military intelligence attempted to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election.
In its ruling affirming Reality’s pretrial detention, the appeals court claimed Reality could be considered a “flight risk” despite her agreeing to wear an electronic-monitoring ankle bracelet, having forfeited her passport, and her parents’ posting of their house as collateral. Disturbingly, the court cited Reality’s statements of support for Julian Assange and Edward Snowden as evidence against her.
The bail decision is one of a series of court orders that raises real concerns about the way the case against Reality is being conducted. Espionage Act cases, carrying the prospect of a ten-year prison sentence, are always difficult for alleged whistleblowers, who are not allowed to bring the public interest in disclosing information to the court’s attention. Nevertheless, as advocates for Reality have argued, her pre-trial detention – and the way it was couched – mark a significant departure from the usual practice for civilian defendants.
Equally worrying is the way Reality’s defence team has been hampered by secrecy restrictions proposed by the prosecution and accepted by the court. In a motion late last year, Reality’s defence argued that the government’s restrictions unconstitutionally impeded the defence’s “ability to gather evidence and prepare its case.” The judge ruled to prevent the defence from showing that the information Reality is said to have disclosed was already in the public domain, and therefore not a “closely held” secret of the United States.
Reality will have to wait for trial in prison, in a system that has tortured and retaliated against truthtellers particularly, for at least another month. Her mother, Billie J.Winner-Davis, responded to the latest ruling: “Denial of bail. They have pretty much convicted her without trial. What other constitutional rights will they violate?”
Courage Trustee Renata Avila:
Ecuador’s decision to grant nationality to Julian Assange is a welcome step, but we’re still a long way from resolving this situation. In the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, we’ve seen the US rhetoric against First Amendment activity, and the threats of prosecution, reach new, dangerous heights. When the Director of the CIA uses his inaugural speech to declare a publisher’s arrest a “priority”, we should all take seriously the threat posed to press freedoms in America. With alleged NSA whistleblower Reality Winner’s Espionage case coming to trial in March and dozens of leak investigations underway, it is clear that the Trump Administration will only intensify the war on whistleblowers and the journalism they make possible.
Federal judge Brian Epps of Augusta, Georgia has denied bail for alleged whistleblower Reality Winner in an aggressively worded ruling that claims the 25-year-old intelligence contractor “hates the United States and desires to damage national security.” Epps also cited social media comments by Winner that she”admires Edward Snowden and Julian Assange” as evidence against her bond request.
Reality Winner faces an Espionage Act charge for allegedly passing classified material to media outlet The Intercept. The documents in question summarise the NSA’s view at the time of evidence suggesting Russia’s military intelligence attempted to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election.
In a ruling that reads like a prosecutor’s character assassination, Epps willfully misrepresents Winner’s statements, accepts government talking points as fact, and adds Winner to “the side of Assange and Snowden” to paint her as a duplicitous traitor who was determined to damage national security. Epps ignores Winner’s six years of service with the Air Force as a translator and ignores the substance of the material she allegedly disclosed in his effort to malign her character. A disinterested judge would observe basic facts about Winner’s case, including the nature of the disclosure and her previous service, rather than the prosecution’s deliberate misrepresentation’s of her casual comments in deciding whether she would be a threat if released on bail. Judges in other US whistleblower cases, it’s worth noting, have managed not to appear quite so partisan.
Epps’ ruling continues to allow the prosecution to set the terms of debate throughout Reality’s case. Back in August, the judge sided with prosecutors in ruling the defense would not be allowed to mention “any information deemed classified by the government, even if it has been widely reported in local, national and international media publications.”
None of this bodes well for Winner’s trial, which is now scheduled for March 2018. Reality will remain in detention until then, with all the hardships that implies. Neither does Judge Epps’ ruling suggest that Reality will receive a fair hearing when her case does finally come to trial, where she faces a potential sentence of 10 years in prison. If the judge is already this predisposed against Winner’s character, and this willing to accept prosecutorial misrepresentations as established fact, how will he fairly adjudicate whether Winner breached the Espionage Act? Not only does Judge Epps appear unwilling to consider that Winner’s alleged leak might have aided public understanding of a major political issue, he seems already prepared to accept the opposite without much debate, that Winner merely sought to harm the United States.
Epps’ ruling is all the more significant given the heavily politicised atmosphere in the United States, led by the Trump Administration’s virulent rhetoric on journalists and their sources. Reality Winner’s is the first media leak prosecution to be brought under a president who has claimed willingness to extend and expand the war on whistleblowers to include prosecution of publishers. It’s reasonable to assume that whatever happens, Winner’s case will give us an indication of the trials ahead for national security reporting in the United States.
You can donate to Reality Winner’s legal defence fund here, and find the Stand with Reality support network here.
Five years ago today, Ecuador invoked international law and recognised the political persecution of Julian Assange and granted him the status of political refugee, judging his life to be at grave risk. Ecuador’s decision was backed by the Union of South American Nations countries and ALBA. As the Center for Constitutional Rights noted, by protecting a journalist at risk, Ecuador “strengthens the global commitment to human rights, including government accountability and freedom of the press.”
In February 2016, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared Assange’s detention to arbitrary, that he “has been subjected to different forms of deprivation of liberty,” and that he was “entitled to his freedom of movement and to compensation.” The United Kingdom challenged the determination and continues to illegally detain him.
In the five years since Ecuador’s decision, the threats of prosecution against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for their legitimate journalistic work, the legal and physical threats against Assange, and the crackdown on whistleblowers and the journalism they enable have increased and intensified. In April, CIA Director Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks a “hostile intelligence service” and said that, “we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us.” His assertions have no basis in the US Constitution or in international law.
Political asylum must be respected, for Assange personally and for truthtellers around the world. The Trump Administration’s intensifying of President Obama’s war on ournalism must be countenanced by a culture of support for whistleblowers and freedom of information.
“There is no more vivid expression of the First Amendment of the US Constitution at work than in the work of WikiLeaks,” says Courage Trustee and celebrated journalist and filmmaker John Pilger. “WikiLeaks reveals the secrets of rapacious power and unaccountable authority which the public has a right to know. That right represents pure democracy.”
Update: MalwareTech has now been released on bail. His arraignment has been rescheduled for 10am on Monday, 14 August in Milwaukee.
MalwareTech, the cyber security researcher who halted the WannaCry ransomware virus earlier this year and was arrested in Las Vegas last week, will be released on bail today and will travel directly to Milwaukee for a court appearance tomorrow in the Eastern District of Wisconsin – After 24 hours of no information about his arrest, and a flurry of international news coverage, it was reported that MalwareTech, who lives in the UK and who was in the US for Defcon, was not a flight risk and will be allowed out on $30,000 bail.