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A Government Whistleblower Trusts a Newsroom, Ends Up in Prison · Question Everything

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Speaker 1: Today on the show, a conversation with someone who lots
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Speaker 1: of people view as a patriot and others see as
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Speaker 1: a traitor. Some of the biggest turning points in our
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Speaker 1: country's history have come thanks to whistleblowers who broke the
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Speaker 1: law and risked everything to get information out to the public.
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Speaker 1: Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, revealing how leaders had
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Speaker 1: misled the country about Vietnam. Edward Snowden exposed the government's
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Speaker 1: vast surveillance of its own citizens. Chelsea Manning revealed human
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Speaker 1: rights abuses by the U.S., including soldiers in an Army
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Speaker 1: Apache helicopter shooting at Iraqi civilians and journalists, because they
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Speaker 1: allegedly mistook them for insurgents. And in 2017, a 25-year-old
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Speaker 1: NSA contractor, a linguist named Reality Winner, leaked proof that
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Speaker 1: Russia had tried to break into U.S. election systems.
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Speaker 2: I just wanted people to see the truth for once
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Speaker 2: and not what their relative media platform was going to
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Speaker 2: tell them.
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Speaker 1: For that, Reality got the longest prison sentence ever imposed
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Speaker 1: on a whistleblower for leaking information to the media. Reality
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Speaker 1: speaks Dari and Pashto, loves working out, really into yoga
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Speaker 1: and CrossFit. When FBI agents came to arrest her at
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Speaker 1: her home in Georgia, she had a Pikachu bedspread, which
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Speaker 1: then got reported in Rolling Stone. You might remember her
1:25
Speaker 1: story because it's been documented in three films. There was
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Speaker 1: a documentary plus two feature films, one on Hulu called Winner,
1:33
Speaker 1: starring Zach Galifianakis and Connie Britton as her parents and
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Speaker 1: Amelia Jones as reality. And then there was an HBO
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Speaker 1: film called Reality, which starred Sidney Sweeney. We had the
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Speaker 1: director and writer of that movie on our show last year.
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Speaker 1: Up next, Reality Winner tells her story in her own
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Speaker 1: words to Ira Glass. From KCRW and Placement Theory, this
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Speaker 1: is Question Everything. I'm Brian Reed. Stick around. In order
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Speaker 1: for our system to work, however imperfect, where whistleblowers feel
2:03
Speaker 1: comfortable taking such a huge gamble to give sensitive information
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Speaker 1: to a reporter, they have to trust reporters. And what
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Speaker 1: happened to Reality Winner was a massive breach of trust
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Speaker 1: by journalists, a huge failure. I've always wanted to hear
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Speaker 1: Reality talk about that, if she has regrets about her experience, anger,
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Speaker 1: and what lessons she takes from it. I recently went
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Speaker 1: to an event here in New York moderated by my
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Speaker 1: former boss and mentor, This American Life host Ira Glass.
2:30
Speaker 1: He was interviewing Reality about her new memoir. It's called
2:32
Speaker 1: I Am Not Your Enemy. The book was one of
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Speaker 1: the first times Reality told her story in her own
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Speaker 1: words about growing up in Texas, joining the Air Force,
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Speaker 1: working as a linguist at the NSA. And of course,
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Speaker 1: the moment that changed her life when she printed out
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Speaker 1: a classified report about Russian interference in the 2016 election
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Speaker 1: between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. She then leaked that
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Speaker 1: document by mail to The Intercept, a news outlet that
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Speaker 1: first built its reputation by publishing classified material from Edward Snowden.
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Speaker 1: The Intercept was supposed to be one of the safest
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Speaker 1: places for a national security leak, and Reality trusted them.
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Speaker 1: Here's Ira on stage with Reality.
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Speaker 3: Nice to be here with you.
3:17
Speaker 2: I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much
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Speaker 2: for doing this.
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Speaker 3: So just to remind everybody who might not have followed
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Speaker 3: this so closely in the news, but you made national
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Speaker 3: headlines in 2017 when you leaked a classified intelligence report,
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Speaker 3: which documented Russian election interference, how they hacked into a
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Speaker 3: company that did election software, and then the Russians used
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Speaker 3: that to try to break into 122 election sites. And
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Speaker 3: for leaking this document, You got the longest prison sentence
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Speaker 3: of anybody who has ever leaked anything to a reporter.
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Speaker 3: You were sentenced to five years. You served four. And
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Speaker 3: the document was on a classified server at the NSA.
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Speaker 3: And one of the things I didn't know until I
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Speaker 3: read your book is just how many people see classified documents.
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Speaker 3: It's like over a million people have access, right?
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Speaker 2: A million of us saw that document and like a
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Speaker 2: million of us were waiting for that one to get leaked.
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Speaker 3: Is it something that people actually talked about? Like, oh,
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Speaker 3: this one is definitely going to get leaked.
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Speaker 2: Yes, it was like we were almost betting money that
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Speaker 2: that would be the Friday night leak.
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Speaker 3: Because often you guys would see a document and then
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Speaker 3: like it would get leaked and you'd be like, of course.
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Speaker 2: I mean, in the first four months of the Trump
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Speaker 2: administration in 2017, yes. And can I ask.
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Speaker 3: You, like, what did you hope would happen? You sent
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Speaker 3: that to The Intercept, which is a website which gets
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Speaker 3: a lot of leaks. Like, in your mind, what did
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Speaker 3: you picture happening once they published this document?
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Speaker 2: I had hoped that our country would protect itself. I
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Speaker 2: had hoped that Americans would gain hope that like figuring
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Speaker 2: out that we are still a very ugly country at heart.
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Speaker 2: Like we would kind of be like, well, it wasn't
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Speaker 2: all us.
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 2: Like, and obviously I'm talking around the document. I still
5:07
Speaker 2: can't mention anything that's contained within those pages or certain
5:12
Speaker 2: countries I don't get to talk about anymore. But I
5:15
Speaker 2: really had hoped that at that point, it would answer
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Speaker 2: a question that was tearing the country in half. And
5:22
Speaker 2: we would move on from that and try to figure
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Speaker 2: out how we're going to survive the next three and
5:27
Speaker 2: a half years of Donald Trump.
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Speaker 3: And I should say, you can't discuss those things because
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Speaker 3: it's part of your court settlement that you can't discuss
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Speaker 3: those things. But at the time, Donald Trump was saying
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Speaker 3: very loudly, as he still says, the Russians didn't interfere.
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Speaker 3: And there was this document on the NSA server showing
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Speaker 3: clearly that the Russians had interfered. One of the things
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Speaker 3: that I think people don't appreciate about your story is
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Speaker 3: that the intelligence report you leaked, again, I can talk
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Speaker 3: about this, but you can't, because I'm not under a government.
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Speaker 3: The intelligence report that you leaked, it said that the
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Speaker 3: Russians interfered in the election, but not enough to hand
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Speaker 3: Trump the presidency. And so my sense of it, and
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Speaker 3: If you can talk about this, please do. And if
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Speaker 3: you can't, then that's fine. Just say. My sense of
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Speaker 3: it is that you weren't trying to say, oh, my God,
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Speaker 3: Trump shouldn't be president. It's more like you were just
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Speaker 3: trying to get facts out there about what actually happened.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. And a big part of it was meant to
6:29
Speaker 2: handle the media bias that was not necessarily new, but
6:34
Speaker 2: we had a little bit more awareness of that in 2017.
6:39
Speaker 2: We didn't have the word algorithm yet, the way that
6:41
Speaker 2: we use it every day now. But I do always
6:44
Speaker 2: say that 2016 was like the first presidential election, almost
6:47
Speaker 2: entirely fought and won on Facebook. And so part of
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Speaker 2: getting that document out there in black and white, and
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Speaker 2: I know like Americans love a good logo, right? And
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Speaker 2: it had the NSA logo at the top of the document.
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Speaker 2: And I just wanted people to see the truth for
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Speaker 2: once and not what they're relative like media platform was going.
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Speaker 3: To tell them. And then the intercept got this document
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Speaker 3: and you're picturing this is going to come out. People
7:19
Speaker 3: will notice it. It's going to be very explosive. Is
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Speaker 3: that right? Yep. Everyone will be talking about it. Yep.
7:28
Speaker 3: It'll push the entire national debate. Yep. And explain what
7:33
Speaker 3: happened when the intercept got it.
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Speaker 2: The Intercept got the document and they tried to figure
7:40
Speaker 2: out what they were going to do to verify it, right?
7:42
Speaker 2: Because anybody could have put that logo on a piece
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Speaker 2: of paper and said, oh, this is top secret. In
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Speaker 2: the meantime, Glenn Greenwald said, we're not publishing that. That's
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Speaker 2: not important. The Intercept was just as impervious to the
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Speaker 2: media bias that I was seeing in the mainstream.
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Speaker 3: Explain what you mean, like when you say the media bias.
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Speaker 3: What do you mean?
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Speaker 2: Like, Fox versus MSNBC type style. You know what I mean?
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Speaker 2: Like what you put the TV on at night or
8:13
Speaker 2: what the TV channel is on. Like when you go
8:16
Speaker 2: get your nails done, like back of the room, subconscious
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Speaker 2: 24 hour news cycle that we just hear nonstop.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: I thought the intercept would be independent of that. And
8:29
Speaker 2: at that point in time, they were not in any
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Speaker 2: way interested in publishing this type of truth.
8:36
Speaker 3: You know, they got this document about Russia. They decided
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Speaker 3: we're not going to publish it. And then eventually they
8:41
Speaker 3: did publish it, right?
8:43
Speaker 2: They published it. I think it was like an hour
8:46
Speaker 2: and 15 minutes before the DOJ press conference where my
8:50
Speaker 2: name was released to the public. And they had sensed
8:54
Speaker 2: that I would be the leaker that sets the example. Yeah.
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Speaker 3: And explain this idea that you were going to be
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Speaker 3: the example. How are you the example at that point?
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Speaker 2: So at that time, people in NSA, FBI were looking
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Speaker 2: for the next leaker. They were really tired of the
9:12
Speaker 2: whispers from Congress that were being sent to various journalists
9:17
Speaker 2: around the Beltway, like every single Friday night. And honestly,
9:21
Speaker 2: as somebody who worked for NSA at the time, while
9:26
Speaker 2: I was kind of like, yeah, rebellion, leaks make our
9:30
Speaker 2: job harder. They set us back. And that was something
9:34
Speaker 2: that I had kind of empathized with. But as somebody
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Speaker 2: who worked for the NSA, who really took it seriously,
9:42
Speaker 2: I saw that document was like, yeah, this is really true.
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Speaker 2: It's really explosive, but it's also obsolete. And so that's
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Speaker 2: why I made the choice to leak that particular document.
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Speaker 3: What do you mean obsolete?
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Speaker 2: Well, my 24-year-old national security expert self decided that that
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Speaker 2: document with the sources and methods involved could not further
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Speaker 2: harm future operations.
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Speaker 3: Because there's no explicit sources and methods revealed in this
10:11
Speaker 3: particular document. Exactly.
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Speaker 2: It would be like declassifying something from Vietnam. Like, what's
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Speaker 2: that going to do?
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Speaker 3: Right, because it was from before the election. It was
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Speaker 3: now well past the election.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. Okay.
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Speaker 3: So finally, The Intercept publishes it. And when they do,
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Speaker 3: what kind of reaction does it get?
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Speaker 2: I don't know. I was in jail, but I'm pretty
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Speaker 2: sure ain't none of y'all read it. Like, to this
10:35
Speaker 2: day and age, I still meet journalists that want to
10:38
Speaker 2: interview me about it. And I'm like, it's been online
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Speaker 2: for eight years now. Like, y'all need to read it.
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Speaker 2: I can't tell you what's in it. But what I
10:47
Speaker 2: can say is that the entire conversation became about who
10:51
Speaker 2: I was and how evil and insidious I was. And
10:56
Speaker 2: what I found out later on is that Congress and
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Speaker 2: other people in positions outside of the NSA did not
11:05
Speaker 2: know that document existed. So when I had seen the
11:09
Speaker 2: document and when a million of us who had top
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Speaker 2: secret clearances saw that document, We were looking to like,
11:16
Speaker 2: why isn't Congress doing anything about it? And they hadn't
11:20
Speaker 2: seen it. So, you know, people always ask, oh, would
11:24
Speaker 2: you do it again? And I'm like, not really. I
11:26
Speaker 2: didn't really accomplish much. If I had to break the
11:29
Speaker 2: law again, I would have taken that document straight to DC,
11:33
Speaker 2: straight to Congress. It felt like everybody in government knew
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Speaker 2: it and were willing to look away, except for me. Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. Have you tried to explain to yourself why it
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Speaker 3: didn't get attention?
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Speaker 2: I don't want to infringe on a copyright or trademark,
11:50
Speaker 2: but it was a really inconvenient truth at the time.
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Speaker 2: I didn't write that. That was me. I'm copying somebody else.
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Speaker 2: But it was a really inconvenient piece of news. And
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Speaker 2: one of my attorneys always told me, you embarrass the government.
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Speaker 2: This is going to be impossible moving forward.
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Speaker 3: But hadn't, in the final days of the Obama administration,
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Speaker 3: hadn't the intelligence agencies, and correct me if I'm remembering
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Speaker 3: this wrong, put out a report saying that Russia was
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Speaker 3: trying to interfere in the election. Like that was a
12:19
Speaker 3: public fact that we knew.
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Speaker 2: They released it on January 6th, 2017. In case that
12:26
Speaker 2: date sounds familiar. But they didn't make it sexy enough
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Speaker 2: because ain't none of y'all ever read that one either.
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Speaker 3: When you look back at this, do you just feel like, oh,
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Speaker 3: that was a mistake I just didn't think through?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I put my family through hell for nothing. And
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Speaker 2: I think that There was a really weird three weeks
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Speaker 2: in which I committed a felony and nothing happened. One
12:49
Speaker 2: of the reasons why I don't know what happened the
12:51
Speaker 2: afternoon I walked out with that document is not because
12:55
Speaker 2: of like, oh, I just can't tell you guys. It's
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Speaker 2: that I walked out with the document, I mailed it
13:03
Speaker 2: and nothing happened. And so I had to kind of
13:07
Speaker 2: convince myself like in order to walk back into the
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Speaker 2: NSA and every single day after that, that it didn't
13:15
Speaker 2: happen and that it A, got lost in the mail
13:19
Speaker 2: or B, they saw it and thought it was fake
13:21
Speaker 2: and shredded it. So like until the FBI showed up
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Speaker 2: at my house in Augusta, Georgia, it actually hadn't happened anymore.
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Speaker 2: And I don't remember why I did it because of
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Speaker 2: those really weird, awkward three weeks of like stressing out
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Speaker 2: and nothing happening.
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Speaker 3: One of the things you point out in the book
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Speaker 3: that I thought was so interesting was that when you
13:42
Speaker 3: first printed out the document, you weren't even thinking about
13:46
Speaker 3: leaking it. Like explain your motivation.
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Speaker 2: I just wanted it like in my hands. I wanted
13:52
Speaker 2: it like I wanted to have it. I wanted to
13:54
Speaker 2: own it.
13:56
Speaker 3: Like just in case somebody would try to wipe away
13:58
Speaker 3: all trace of it someday.
13:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, like definitely things that are on paper are sort
14:05
Speaker 2: of a relic that like You know, once we lose
14:09
Speaker 2: a power source, whatever's on the computer is gone forever.
14:12
Speaker 2: But here's a paper that, you know, could survive time. Yeah.
14:19
Speaker 3: But did you foresee, like, maybe they'll try to erase
14:21
Speaker 3: this off the server and then you'll be glad you
14:23
Speaker 3: have it because you might want to bring it forward then?
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Speaker 2: I don't know if I was that cynical yet, but
14:31
Speaker 2: I did know, like, I was very aware of the
14:34
Speaker 2: fact that reports... did and could get taken down.
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Speaker 3: There's this thing that you read in the book, you
14:41
Speaker 3: say that like you did this completely life-changing thing without
14:44
Speaker 3: giving it like a ton of thought. You say, I
14:47
Speaker 3: spontaneously tapped the print button on a five-page document involving
14:50
Speaker 3: intelligence from the previous year without giving the whole thing
14:53
Speaker 3: much thought. And like an actor in some slapstick comedy,
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Speaker 3: I immediately realized that I didn't know where in the
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Speaker 3: office the report would be printed out.
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Speaker 2: I didn't know. There was a very long hallway and
15:08
Speaker 2: the NSA was trying to do this thing where we
15:10
Speaker 2: had an open workspace. So it wasn't even like cubicles
15:15
Speaker 2: and all the printers were in kitchenettes, but there were
15:19
Speaker 2: like a kitchenette with unclassified printers. And then there were
15:23
Speaker 2: like the next level up was like a yellow sticker
15:26
Speaker 2: on the printers for just secret. And then there were
15:29
Speaker 2: kitchenettes that had like but red top secret. And then
15:34
Speaker 2: there were like the red ones with the lines through
15:36
Speaker 2: it with like the top secret, no foreign. And I
15:40
Speaker 2: was just like going from kitchenette to kitchenette at like
15:44
Speaker 2: seven 15 in the morning and nobody was even there yet.
15:47
Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah, I'm just going to come
15:49
Speaker 2: look at this Keurig.
15:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
15:53
Speaker 2: I had no idea where that printer was.
16:01
Speaker 1: That's Reality Winner on stage in New York with Ira Glass.
16:05
Speaker 1: After a break, what was it like to get caught?
16:18
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show. We've been listening to NSA
16:21
Speaker 1: leaker Reality Winner telling Ira Glass about the top secret
16:25
Speaker 1: document she printed showing Russia's attempts to interfere in the
16:28
Speaker 1: 2016 election. Reality says she smuggled the document out of
16:32
Speaker 1: the NSA, hidden in her pantyhose. Then she mailed it
16:35
Speaker 1: to The Intercept, a newsroom known for handling leaked, classified documents.
16:40
Speaker 2: One of the reasons why I chose The Intercept is
16:42
Speaker 2: all of these guys had, like, NSA military intelligence backgrounds.
16:47
Speaker 2: And that they presented their information in a way that
16:49
Speaker 2: felt pre-sanitized. And it felt like they weren't just going
16:52
Speaker 2: to be like, here's a source and a methodology that
16:55
Speaker 2: we're perfectly comfortable with jeopardizing.
16:58
Speaker 4: Right?
16:58
Speaker 2: I trusted these guys.
17:00
Speaker 1: But Reality says that trust was misplaced. The Intercept shared
17:04
Speaker 1: the document with the NSA to verify it. It turns
17:07
Speaker 1: out only six employees had printed it, and authorities were
17:10
Speaker 1: able to pretty quickly figure out who the leaker was.
17:12
Speaker 1: FBI agents showed up at her home, interrogated her, and
17:16
Speaker 1: arrested her. The Intercept conducted an internal review after Reality
17:21
Speaker 1: was caught out, and the then-editor-in-chief wrote afterwards that the
17:25
Speaker 1: Intercept had fallen short of its standards for dealing with
17:28
Speaker 1: anonymously leaked material. It is clear that we should have
17:31
Speaker 1: taken greater precautions to protect the identity of a source
17:34
Speaker 1: who is anonymous even to us, the editor wrote. Here's
17:38
Speaker 1: the rest of Ira's conversation with reality.
17:42
Speaker 3: Did the Intercept try to make this up to you
17:43
Speaker 3: in any way?
17:45
Speaker 2: The parent company that owns the Intercept paid for my
17:49
Speaker 2: legal fees. And that's why I tried to have as
17:52
Speaker 2: many attorney meetings as possible. I was like, yes, come
17:57
Speaker 2: visit me in prison.
17:58
Speaker 1: Yes.
17:59
Speaker 2: I was like, how much do you charge per hour? $ 1, 500? Yes.
18:06
Speaker 3: This question comes from friends of mine at the Journalism Podcast,
18:09
Speaker 3: Question Everything. They wanted me to ask you, when did
18:12
Speaker 3: you learn about the Intercept's mistakes? Who told that to you?
18:15
Speaker 3: Where were you?
18:17
Speaker 2: I was in a broom closet in the Augusta Courthouse
18:21
Speaker 2: because that became our secured compartmented information facility or a SCIFT.
18:28
Speaker 3: Wait, how did you know that that wasn't bugged?
18:32
Speaker 2: We found out a lot of things were bugged in hindsight,
18:35
Speaker 2: but there was like a fan that was supposed to
18:37
Speaker 2: stop people from listening. It was a whole thing, but
18:41
Speaker 2: it was designed to make it so that I could
18:45
Speaker 2: not have any type of normal communication with my attorneys.
18:48
Speaker 3: So the courthouse said, here's a secure room. And it's
18:52
Speaker 3: a broom closet. And there's a fan in the broom
18:54
Speaker 3: closet that makes noise. Is that the idea?
18:56
Speaker 4: Yep.
18:57
Speaker 2: And my legal team at that point was nine individuals.
19:02
Speaker 2: And if we were really comfortable with each other, we
19:05
Speaker 2: could fit about four of us in there. So it
19:08
Speaker 2: made legal discussions very, like, difficult. Also, like, the air
19:11
Speaker 2: conditioning didn't work in that room. But it was secure.
19:14
Speaker 2: That's what they said.
19:15
Speaker 3: And that's when you learned. That's when you learned, like,
19:18
Speaker 3: this is why this happened. That's when you learned the
19:20
Speaker 3: intercept had done this.
19:22
Speaker 2: And then I believe it was that same meeting when
19:26
Speaker 2: I actually got to see the FBI texts like minute
19:30
Speaker 2: by minute the night before, like, yes, you will arrest her.
19:34
Speaker 2: And then, no, you're not going to arrest her. And yes,
19:37
Speaker 2: she will be in custody by the end of the day.
19:39
Speaker 2: And then like Saturday morning at like 6 a.m., she's
19:42
Speaker 2: not under arrest. Like, don't tell her she's under arrest.
19:47
Speaker 2: So they went back and forth on it. And that
19:49
Speaker 2: was one of the things. that we had intended to
19:52
Speaker 2: bring to the court to try to get my confession
19:55
Speaker 2: taken from the record.
19:57
Speaker 3: How would that get your confession taken from the record?
20:00
Speaker 2: If I was in custody and I confessed without being
20:04
Speaker 2: read my Miranda rights, that would have actually had the
20:07
Speaker 2: entire thing settled in a mistrial. which we weren't even
20:11
Speaker 2: hoping for that. We just wanted the confession taken off
20:15
Speaker 2: court records and not played in front of a jury.
20:17
Speaker 3: But you lost that.
20:19
Speaker 2: They never ruled on it.
20:21
Speaker 3: Did your experience with The Intercept lead you to distrust
20:24
Speaker 3: reporters in general as a result?
20:29
Speaker 2: No, my experience with Rolling Stone led me to not
20:34
Speaker 2: trust reporters in general.
20:36
Speaker 3: What was that experience?
20:38
Speaker 2: It was a four-hour conversation about my entire life with
20:44
Speaker 2: somebody that had been in contact with me my entire incarceration.
20:50
Speaker 2: And I just said something funny at the end, like, yeah,
20:52
Speaker 2: I wish my attorneys actually got paid like they were
20:54
Speaker 2: supposed to. And after that, that's what she made the
20:58
Speaker 2: entire article about. And I got in big trouble for that.
21:03
Speaker 2: So I was like, you could have just asked that
21:05
Speaker 2: up front and saved me four hours of my life.
21:08
Speaker 2: But that was when I learned, like, journalists, no offense
21:11
Speaker 2: to anybody here, there's, like, a low-hanging fruit that's going
21:15
Speaker 2: to get clicks right now. And a lot of times
21:18
Speaker 2: that's really tempting.
21:20
Speaker 3: When news of you, like, became a national thing, like,
21:23
Speaker 3: when you hit the national news, can you just talk about, like,
21:26
Speaker 3: what you saw said about you? Like, what you saw
21:28
Speaker 3: on Inside Edition, what you saw elsewhere? You want to
21:31
Speaker 3: start with Inside Edition?
21:34
Speaker 2: That was, like, the first... non-government hit piece on me
21:40
Speaker 2: that was so devastating because like, think about your social
21:45
Speaker 2: media and think about like anything you've ever said or
21:48
Speaker 2: done in a video, three words, like pulled out of
21:52
Speaker 2: context and then like shown you in like a jumpsuit
21:56
Speaker 2: and chains and like, yeah, they, they're terrible. I think
21:59
Speaker 2: the biggest thing that I remember from that is that
22:03
Speaker 2: I had made a video of me planking for 24
22:06
Speaker 2: minutes for my 24th birthday because my favorite yoga teacher,
22:11
Speaker 2: that was his thing. Like no matter how old you turned,
22:13
Speaker 2: you have to plank for that many minutes.
22:18
Speaker 3: So, so I turned 66 recently. It's okay.
22:23
Speaker 2: Like I think the world record's like 18 hours.
22:25
Speaker 3: So you've got this. Oh, okay.
22:28
Speaker 2: Um, But there's a point where, like, I'm, like, laugh
22:32
Speaker 2: crying at, like, minute 21. And I'm like, I hate everything.
22:36
Speaker 2: And that's what Inside Edition pulled. And so I seemed
22:40
Speaker 2: very unhinged and not patriotic. And I was just like,
22:45
Speaker 2: that was my birthday plank.
22:48
Speaker 3: They quoted you saying, I hate everything. And then did
22:50
Speaker 3: they say that, like, this is why you committed this crime?
22:53
Speaker 4: Yes.
22:54
Speaker 2: I committed that crime because I hate planking.
22:58
Speaker 3: What was it like to see this stuff said about you?
23:01
Speaker 2: Physically traumatic. I would come home from court. First of all,
23:05
Speaker 2: just going to court was traumatic. You are shackled hands
23:08
Speaker 2: and feet the entire day. Like your feet are manacled
23:12
Speaker 2: the entire day. No exercise. You're no longer in control
23:18
Speaker 2: of what you're eating or drinking. The woman's cell is
23:22
Speaker 2: right next to the men's cell with an open bathroom.
23:25
Speaker 2: And there's also reflective glass. So like on one hand,
23:29
Speaker 2: like when you get locked up long enough, it's really
23:31
Speaker 2: cool because there's boys over there, even though you don't
23:34
Speaker 2: know why those boys are there. But also men are
23:36
Speaker 2: watching you pee all day. And then going into the
23:40
Speaker 2: courtroom is like physically traumatic because it's like, don't react.
23:45
Speaker 2: But if you don't react, you're, I don't know, like
23:48
Speaker 2: you're a sociopath. But if you do react, you're unhinged.
23:51
Speaker 2: So most of the time you're sitting there like, I
23:53
Speaker 2: don't really care what these people are saying. And that's
23:57
Speaker 2: like a 10 hour day because you don't just go
24:00
Speaker 2: home or go back to jail because your hearing's over with.
24:04
Speaker 2: You go at six o'clock at night when everybody's done.
24:08
Speaker 2: So that's traumatic. And then you get back into the
24:11
Speaker 2: housing unit or the cell and everybody's like, what were
24:15
Speaker 2: you doing all day? And I'm like, I don't being tortured.
24:18
Speaker 2: I don't know what you want me to say. And
24:20
Speaker 2: then I go to take a shower and I just
24:23
Speaker 2: feel filthy being chained all day. And then they're watching
24:27
Speaker 2: the news and while you're in the shower, because it's
24:29
Speaker 2: one room and you can hear everything the prosecution had
24:32
Speaker 2: to say about you. So then I get out of
24:34
Speaker 2: the shower and everybody's looking at me like, oh my God,
24:37
Speaker 2: we didn't know that fricking Bin Laden was in here.
24:39
Speaker 2: And these women were so like, they were illiterate in general,
24:43
Speaker 2: but like they were especially media illiterate. So they were like,
24:46
Speaker 2: we've never been in a situation before where, you know,
24:49
Speaker 2: one of us is on the TV. Like, what did
24:51
Speaker 2: you do? And I'm like, I sent a piece of
24:54
Speaker 2: paper and they're like, So how much money did you embezzle?
24:58
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I sent a piece of paper. Like
25:01
Speaker 2: to this day, I can't, I can't watch or read
25:04
Speaker 2: anything about myself, even if I have like total control
25:08
Speaker 2: over it. Like even if it's my own words, like
25:10
Speaker 2: this recording, I can't listen to it because I start
25:13
Speaker 2: to shake violently because I just remember how hard those
25:16
Speaker 2: nights were with these women that were so obsessed with like, Rhi,
25:22
Speaker 2: you're on TV. And I'm like, I don't, I'm like,
25:25
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Like my government just accused
25:26
Speaker 2: me of terrorism for no reason. You know, I don't
25:29
Speaker 2: want to watch it right now.
25:31
Speaker 3: I mean, for me, I feel like it just seems
25:33
Speaker 3: like such a nightmarish thing to do something that you're
25:35
Speaker 3: thinking is an idealistic act and patriotic. And then people
25:43
Speaker 3: are saying this stuff about you, you know?
25:45
Speaker 2: Honestly, I thought as a country we had moved past it.
25:49
Speaker 2: Like I thought with like Snowden, I don't know, like, yes,
25:52
Speaker 2: I worked intelligence. So people were like, we don't like
25:55
Speaker 2: Snowden because they look in our lunchboxes at work now.
25:59
Speaker 2: Like we have to go through turnstiles and metal detectors.
26:01
Speaker 3: At NSA.
26:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, at NSA. But nobody really disagreed.
26:06
Speaker 3: Because he took out like a flash drive or something.
26:08
Speaker 2: A flash drive, yeah. So Snowden was the reason why
26:10
Speaker 2: we had to go through significantly more security to get
26:15
Speaker 2: to work every day. And so, like, nobody likes that guy.
26:20
Speaker 2: And that was the point.
26:21
Speaker 3: At NSA.
26:22
Speaker 2: At NSA. Like, it was never like, oh, don't betray
26:25
Speaker 2: your country. It was like, don't make life inconvenient for us. But, like,
26:31
Speaker 2: nobody disagreed with why he leaked it. And so I thought, like,
26:35
Speaker 2: as a country, we were past that moment where, like,
26:37
Speaker 2: we were going to call leakers traitors without looking into
26:41
Speaker 2: what they had leaked, right? Like, especially six years after Snowden.
26:45
Speaker 2: I thought people would be a lot more favorable to
26:47
Speaker 2: it and paying more attention.
26:50
Speaker 3: And look at what you were actually leaking and deciding
26:53
Speaker 3: if they thought it was good or not.
26:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like decide for yourselves, was this national defense
26:58
Speaker 2: information or not?
27:01
Speaker 3: You know, the government prosecuted you under the Intelligence Act
27:04
Speaker 3: of 1917 and you got this huge sentence. What do
27:10
Speaker 3: you think should have happened? You're saying on the one
27:12
Speaker 3: hand you agree that people shouldn't be leaking and national
27:17
Speaker 3: security is a real thing and classified documents should be
27:20
Speaker 3: kept secure. So what do you think should have happened
27:24
Speaker 3: in your case?
27:25
Speaker 2: In my case, I would have liked to go to
27:28
Speaker 2: an experienced intelligence-based court, probably in Alexandria, Virginia, where there
27:34
Speaker 2: is one, where we could have made a legal defense
27:38
Speaker 2: that as to whether or not that document was in
27:41
Speaker 2: fact national defense information and whether or not the publication
27:46
Speaker 2: of that document affected national security moving forward. Then it
27:51
Speaker 2: could have gone to trial and even then I would
27:54
Speaker 2: have gotten a significantly lower sentence. I have never from
27:59
Speaker 2: day one asked for zero consequences.
28:02
Speaker 3: Because you feel like you should have faced some consequences
28:05
Speaker 3: because people just shouldn't be like leaking classified documents. You
28:08
Speaker 3: feel like that seems fair. It's just the level of
28:10
Speaker 3: it seems unfair.
28:11
Speaker 4: Yeah.
28:13
Speaker 2: And I mean, I don't know. Maybe I could have
28:15
Speaker 2: gotten away with it.
28:19
Speaker 3: Is the thing you're saying that you wanted them to consider,
28:22
Speaker 3: are they allowed to consider that under the act? Can
28:24
Speaker 3: they consider the degree to which something compromises national security?
28:29
Speaker 2: That is why the way the law stands today, the
28:32
Speaker 2: way it is written, 793E of the Espionage Act of
28:36
Speaker 2: 1917 is an unjust law because it is vague, it
28:41
Speaker 2: is broad, and it can be used however they want
28:44
Speaker 2: it to be used. But a similar leaker named Daniel
28:48
Speaker 2: Hale did get to go to a national security specialty
28:53
Speaker 2: court in Alexandria, Virginia, and got less time in prison.
28:57
Speaker 2: and that that was not a plea deal. I mean,
29:00
Speaker 2: I love Dan.
29:00
Speaker 3: And that was because he was able to argue this
29:03
Speaker 3: didn't actually compromise national security. There was a public interest
29:05
Speaker 3: to this.
29:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was actually able to make a public interest argument.
29:10
Speaker 2: We were in Redneckistan, Georgia, where it was like, nah,
29:15
Speaker 2: she's bad.
29:17
Speaker 3: With all of these things that have been said about
29:18
Speaker 3: you that you felt like were not capturing at all,
29:21
Speaker 3: and in fact, completely missing the point of what you
29:23
Speaker 3: were trying to do, what was it like to write
29:25
Speaker 3: a book?
29:27
Speaker 2: I didn't like it very much. I feel so much
29:31
Speaker 2: for everybody that's worked with me in the last four years.
29:35
Speaker 2: To me, I felt like it took a lot of
29:38
Speaker 2: building me back up, right? Because after being called a traitor,
29:41
Speaker 2: I was like, we don't have to mention I was
29:43
Speaker 2: in the Air Force. We don't have to mention my childhood.
29:46
Speaker 2: I just wanted a prison memoir.
29:48
Speaker 3: Did you have the experience when you were writing that
29:50
Speaker 3: you felt like, oh my God, I'm finally getting to
29:51
Speaker 3: say this. I'm finally getting to say this thing I
29:53
Speaker 3: want people to hear?
29:56
Speaker 2: It took a really long time, but right now I'm
29:58
Speaker 2: starting to see that this is going to be one
30:02
Speaker 2: of the first and maybe the only narratives of a
30:06
Speaker 2: woman linguist associated with the war in Afghanistan and the
30:13
Speaker 2: extremely traumatic, but irreverent way with which we handled fighting
30:18
Speaker 2: a war from an office space. It took me a
30:21
Speaker 2: really long time to see that we were giving the
30:24
Speaker 2: reader something that may not be seen anywhere else right now.
30:30
Speaker 3: That's so interesting. That's the part of it that you
30:32
Speaker 3: feel proud of, or one of the parts of it
30:34
Speaker 3: that you feel proud of. You're talking about the fact that, like,
30:37
Speaker 3: in the book, you describe listening in on conversations, and
30:41
Speaker 3: you're sending out these bombing missions, and over 600 people
30:46
Speaker 3: died as a result of intelligence that you gave. You said, like,
30:50
Speaker 3: do this one. And, yeah, you came out of it
30:53
Speaker 3: with PTSD, which happens... That's not uncommon with drone operators
30:59
Speaker 3: and people who are involved in these missions.
31:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a weird way to connect that with my
31:08
Speaker 2: life now. Last week, I finally put up my car
31:15
Speaker 2: license plates that say Air Force Commendation Medal on them.
31:21
Speaker 2: I almost never identify as a veteran anymore.
31:25
Speaker 3: Can I ask, like, listening in on those things, if
31:28
Speaker 3: you can't talk about this, just say, how clear is
31:32
Speaker 3: it that a bombing mission needs to be called in? Like,
31:36
Speaker 3: what kinds of things are people saying? How clear is
31:39
Speaker 3: it that it's the right thing to do to send
31:41
Speaker 3: in a bombing mission? It's not.
31:44
Speaker 2: We were barely qualified to do that. 0.00001% of the
31:48
Speaker 2: time was like, they're watching American soldiers. They're going to
31:56
Speaker 2: shoot those American soldiers. Every other time was like, well,
32:00
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, but you know, we have
32:03
Speaker 2: a quota to make.
32:05
Speaker 3: You guys have a quota to make?
32:07
Speaker 2: Not, it was never written out. I'm not going to
32:09
Speaker 2: say that, but we would get these officers that were
32:13
Speaker 2: not intelligence officers. They would just come rotating through because
32:16
Speaker 2: in the military, if you're an officer, you just get
32:18
Speaker 2: to do what you want. And they would come by
32:21
Speaker 2: with zero, like, They just came from like Korea, right?
32:25
Speaker 2: And they would come over and be like, well, why
32:26
Speaker 2: aren't we doing anything? And I'm like, because Afghanistan's covered
32:30
Speaker 2: in ice right now. Like, what do you mean? And
32:33
Speaker 2: they're like, well, order a strike. And I'm like, Afghanistan
32:37
Speaker 2: is covered in ice right now. Like, what do you mean?
32:41
Speaker 2: And those were like the jackasses that we would have
32:44
Speaker 2: to deal with.
32:45
Speaker 3: Can you talk about the kinds of things that you
32:47
Speaker 3: would hear that would result in an airstrike?
32:54
Speaker 2: I don't know how much is like declassified. None of
32:56
Speaker 2: it's declassified, but how much like the NSA is cool with.
33:00
Speaker 2: But like I said, it's just very rarely we could
33:04
Speaker 2: clearly hear that American soldiers were in danger. But that
33:10
Speaker 2: was only after we established that American soldiers were in
33:14
Speaker 2: the area, right? Like we had to know who is
33:17
Speaker 2: out there, what unit it is, where exactly are they,
33:21
Speaker 2: and then decide, Yeah, they're being watched.
33:25
Speaker 3: You write in your book that you had read about
33:26
Speaker 3: prisons and you had seen the documentary 13th about the
33:30
Speaker 3: prison system and you had seen Orange is the New Black.
33:33
Speaker 3: Can you compare for me your picture of what it
33:36
Speaker 3: was going to be like to be incarcerated to what
33:39
Speaker 3: it was really like?
33:44
Speaker 2: But it was just as tragic. And I think that
33:47
Speaker 2: the difference being is that like Orange is the New
33:49
Speaker 2: Black was set in prison proper. And so I got
33:53
Speaker 2: to this one room county jail cell where it was like, okay,
33:57
Speaker 2: but where's the rest of this place? But the people,
34:00
Speaker 2: the characters are the same. And so being like the
34:05
Speaker 2: aspiring filmmaker that I was, was like seeing everybody, like
34:10
Speaker 2: the characters, like even if I really, really, really disliked somebody,
34:14
Speaker 2: I started to like in my mind put together okay,
34:18
Speaker 2: in Orange is the New Black, this is where it
34:20
Speaker 2: would cut away and start showing this character's backstory. And
34:24
Speaker 2: so I started writing backstories for the people around me.
34:28
Speaker 2: And that kept me sane.
34:30
Speaker 3: Did it help you get along with them better?
34:32
Speaker 4: No.
34:35
Speaker 2: No, but it was a way to pass the time.
34:38
Speaker 3: I mean, reading the book, I was, I may get
34:41
Speaker 3: surprised at what good relationships you have with most of
34:45
Speaker 3: the women you were in with. And like how supportive
34:47
Speaker 3: they often were.
34:49
Speaker 2: We had to be everything for each other, right? Like
34:51
Speaker 2: we had to be best friend, mother, sister, daughter, cousin,
34:56
Speaker 2: worst enemy. You know, we had to be everything for
34:59
Speaker 2: each other or else we wouldn't have anything. Okay.
35:03
Speaker 3: So I'm going to take, we're going to now take
35:06
Speaker 3: questions from you guys. Yes. Did it ever cross your
35:11
Speaker 3: mind to not stay? Did it occur to you not
35:14
Speaker 3: to stay in the United States?
35:17
Speaker 2: It didn't occur to me to flee because I thought
35:21
Speaker 2: the information would get out first, and I thought people
35:24
Speaker 2: would be so grateful for it that by the time
35:27
Speaker 2: I got arrested or caught or apprehended for it, it
35:31
Speaker 2: would be like, okay, but don't do that again.
35:36
Speaker 3: Who else has a question here? Anybody else? Yeah. What
35:41
Speaker 3: does patriotism mean to you now, and how has that
35:44
Speaker 3: changed since 2017?
35:47
Speaker 2: I think that patriotism means loving something but still being
35:55
Speaker 2: able to criticize it, be able to see the flaws,
35:59
Speaker 2: and to understand that loving something like the United States
36:03
Speaker 2: of America, we were flawed from the start. We were
36:08
Speaker 2: built upon sin. And I think patriotism is trying to
36:14
Speaker 2: fix that original sin.
36:36
Speaker 1: That's Reality Winner with This American Life host Ira Glass
36:40
Speaker 1: at McNally Jackson Books here in New York. Thanks to
36:43
Speaker 1: Ira and to the teams over at This American Life
36:45
Speaker 1: and McNally Jackson for sharing this conversation with us and
36:48
Speaker 1: to Susanna Fogel. Again, Reality's memoir is called I Am
36:52
Speaker 1: Not Your Enemy. Please rate and review, question everything, share
36:58
Speaker 1: it with a friend. Today's episode was edited by managing
37:01
Speaker 1: editor Kevin Sullivan. Our executive producers are me, Brian Reed,
37:05
Speaker 1: and Robin Simeon. Annika Robbins was our fact checker this week.
37:08
Speaker 1: The rest of our team includes producers Zach St. Louis,
37:11
Speaker 1: Sophie Kazis, associate producer Kevin Shepard, and contributing editor Jen Kinney.
37:16
Speaker 1: Our sound designer, Brendan Baker, mixed this week's show. Our
37:19
Speaker 1: music is by Matt McGinley. Our partners at KCRW include
37:22
Speaker 1: Arnie Seipel, Tejal Aljamera, Natalie Hill, and Jennifer Farrow. Next
37:27
Speaker 1: week on the show, the president of Argentina joins in
37:30
Speaker 1: an online attack against a journalist who was the victim
37:33
Speaker 1: of a deepfake video.
37:37
Speaker 4: The first thing that I started seeing were threats in
37:42
Speaker 4: my Instagram inbox, threats with my address, awful things, just like,
37:50
Speaker 4: you're going to experience something very bad, something bad is
37:54
Speaker 4: going to happen to you. I've never received in my
37:59
Speaker 4: inbox such direct threats.
38:03
Speaker 1: That's next Thursday. We'll see you then.