a story about someone named reality
winner has to start with the name
her father playing on the family name
explained he wanted a real winner and so
reality
maybe that still doesn't make sense but
it is the least baffling fact in this
story
reality winner became an infamous name
in 2017 when she was accused of
espionage
she was hit with the longest sentence
ever imposed on a civilian for leaking
classified information to the media
now released she spoke with us
did reality winner do exceptionally
grave damage as the prosecutor said
or did she reveal a truth that defended
america
it's complicated
like the young woman with the
unforgettable name
the story will continue in a moment
i am not a traitor
i
am not a spy
i am somebody who only acted
out of
love for what this country stands for
nobody ever really appreciated we met 30
year old reality winner at home in texas
after four years behind bars
espionage seems surprising for a woman
who joined the air force at 19
and won the air force commendation medal
in 2016 for quote
600 enemies killed in action
she did that as a linguist in a combat
unit fighting secret missions how many
languages do you speak
farsi dari and pashto
these are the languages of afghanistan
and iran yes
but her duty station was 7 000 miles
away from those countries at fort meade
maryland why are you at fort meade
not am i allowed to say that
no no okay that's the voice of her
lawyer who helped her steer clear of
secrets in our interview
winner wouldn't say it but at fort meade
linguists eavesdropped on communications
in afghanistan to identify targets for
armed drones it is not something i am
allowed to discuss she didn't discuss
her mission with her mother billy winner
davis only one conversation that i had
with her did she ever let on how heavy
her work was i'll never forget because
she said you know
when you're watching somebody on your
screen and that person goes poof
you've got to make sure that you've got
everything right
i was starting to see in the news that
our mission had a very high civilian
casualty rating
she began to feel guilt while battling
illness depression and the eating
disorder bulimia she left the air force
for a top secret civilian job at the
national security agency at fort gordon
in augusta georgia
but here in 2017 she says what she was
hearing in english worried her far more
than intercepts in farsi and pashto if
you don't catch a hacker
okay in the act it's very hard to say
who did the hacking the president was
raising doubt that russia attacked the
2016 election his interview with john
dickerson was typical at the time i'll
go along with russia could have been
china it could have been a lot of
different groups
but it was russia and the nsa knew it
reality winner had seen proof in a top
secret report on an in-house news feed
i just kept thinking my god somebody
needs to step forward
and put this right
somebody
the secret report said in 2016 the
russian military executed cyber
espionage against 122 local government
organizations targeting officials
involved in the management of voter
registration systems
it was top secret in part because it
revealed what the u.s knew about russian
tactics
winner told us she was exposing a white
house cover-up
she printed the report dropped it in
this mailbox addressed anonymously to an
online news source that specialized in
government wrongdoing
the nsa report was published a month
later you knew it was stamp top secret
you knew what that meant
i knew that i knew it was secret but i
also knew that
i had pledged service to the american
people
and at that point in time it felt like
they were being led astray
winter was caught as soon as the top
secret report surfaced the nsa could see
on its network that she printed it
she drove home to a new reality
a plain black sedan came up behind my
car
and two men in polo shirts came out and
introduced themselves as fbi agents
a transcript shows the fbi agents told
her the interrogation was voluntary and
they didn't mention her right to an
attorney
winner lied about mailing the report
then confessed and was arrested the
government hit her with the most serious
possible charge espionage
bail was denied after prosecutors told a
judge that winner wrote in her diary
that she was mad enough to burn the
white house
they suggested she might defect to the
taliban
to the public they said this the
winner's willful purposeful disclosure
caused exceptionally grave damage to u.s
national security but what prosecutors
called grave damage was a bombshell of
truth to the federal election assistance
commission which helped secure the vote
in hours the commission issued an alert
on the nsa document leak it spelled out
the top secret email addresses utilized
by the attackers and urged officials to
check email logs
blindsided by winner's revelation the
commission called for full disclosure of
election security intelligence
two former officials told us
reality winner helped secure the 2018
midterm election
one of the things that you learned
about the espionage charge
is that in court you're not allowed to
talk about what you leaked
or why you leaked it
what would you have told the judge
that i thought this was
the truth
but also
did not
betray our sources and methods did not
cause damage did not put lives on the
line
it only filled in a question mark that
was tearing our country in half
in may 2017
and that i meant no harm
but there was harm for her
as her case dragged on 16 months she
says depression was consuming her her
mother moved from texas to augusta to be
with her daughter
there would just
be times when
it almost wasn't worth it to see the end
of this
and so
you had thoughts of taking your own life
yes
i started to plan my suicide
and i would do practice runs
the only thing
that was stopping me
was my mom
because she was still in augusta
my dad had gone back to texas to go to
work
and i just refused
to let her hear that news by herself
so i would get on the phone and just try
to talk around it and hey there's no
need to stick around visitation's not
worth it
go back to texas just just go just go
her mother billy
heard that while sitting in on our
interview with her daughter reality told
us that
she
was planning
to kill herself
i heard that
yeah
did you know she was in that much
trouble
i mean there were some very dark days
but then
they would be followed by a better day
i just knew when i was there in georgia
i couldn't leave
i couldn't leave her
in 2018 at the age of 26 winner pleaded
guilty the judge said he would make an
example of her
she served four years behind bars plus
three now answering to a probation
officer
she still can't talk about the case
i've had four years of just trying to
say i'm not a terrorist
i can't even begin to talk about my
actual espionage indictment
or have a sense of accomplishment in
having survived prison
because i'm still
stained by them accusing me
of being the same
groups
that i enlisted in the air force to
fight against
so i don't let myself feel anything
regarding the actual act or the charge
until i can let it be known that i'm not
what they said i was
she served her sentence during prison
lockdowns for covid and the unrest after
the police murder of george floyd
in a cell with two companions depression
and bulimia
she became self-destructive
you know every time that i had to
give in to my illness
i put it on my body i cut myself
everywhere
i couldn't leave my cell i couldn't work
out
and all i could do was ask why and ask
why
and a chaplain walked by
and i asked him why they were doing this
to us and
that same chaplain that i had seen for
two years
looked me in my face
and said nobody gives a [ __ ] about y'all
in here
i started getting high that day
everyone knows there's drugs in prison
i was reduced to
binging and purging
getting high
every day
and cutting myself
have you been able to get clean
i have
i just
am ashamed to say how hard it is
it's worth noting how inconsistent the
government is in these cases
in 2008 greg bergerson a pentagon
employee was convicted of selling
secrets to the chinese that's him in fbi
surveillance getting his pocket stuffed
with cash
his sentence was six months shorter than
reality winners
in 2012 former army general and cia
director david petraeus gave notebooks
of top secret information to an author
who was his mistress
he was charged with misdemeanor
mishandling of classified information
and never spent a minute in jail
was it worth it
i try so hard not to frame things
as being worth it or not worth it
what i know is that
i'm home
with my parents
and we take our lives every day moving
forward
as being
richer in knowing what to be grateful
for
it's okay you're here you're here
grateful for the moment of her prison
release
we said this story is complicated
on the one hand individuals can't be
deciding what to declassify
on the other
some things are classified to conceal
wrongdoing
torture in the war on terror for example
in a home in texas one mother has
simplified the story her way
with a portrait of a veteran
and a display of a commendation for
meritorious service to her country
what reality did was not espionage what
reality did was patriotism
she actually stood up and worked for the
american people to give us the truth
about an attack
on our vote an attack on our democracy
an attack on our country
and i'm very proud of her for that
how recent leaks of government documents
have stirred debate over the espionage
act at 60 minutes overtime dot com