Federal contractor named Reality Winner arrested for NSA leaks, Twitter goes wild over her name

Ashley Boucher


The Department of Justice has charged a 25-year-old federal contractor named Reality Leigh Winner with leaking National Security Agency documents to a media outlet.

This comes just hours after The Intercept published top-secret NSA documents detailing Russian involvement in the 2016 United States presidential election.

The documents detail intelligence of a "months-long Russian intelligence cyber effort against elements of the U.S. election and voting infrastructure," the Intercept reported.

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While this is no doubt a serious matter, the internet is finding the name of the woman charged to be far more interesting than the legal repercussions and security threat.

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Some social media users are made connections to the president's reality TV show past on Monday, while others are excited about the inevitable movie that will be made inspired by the true events. Others just can't believe that Reality Winner is someone's real name.

The report published by The Intercept on May 5 stated in its summary that Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) "executed cyber espionage operations" against a United States company last August. "The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to ... launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations," the report said. This is the most detailed evidence so far that Russia was involved in hacking during the U.S. presidential election.

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Winner, of Augusta, Georgia, is now facing charges that she removed classified material from a government facility and mailed it to a news outlet. She was arrested on Saturday and appeared on the charge Monday, the Washington Examiner reported.

Read some of the reactions to her arrest below.

Read original story Federal Contractor Named Reality Winner Arrested for NSA Leaks, Twitter Goes Wild Over Her Name At TheWrap

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