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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsReality Winner: Blew the whistle on Russia hacking voting rolls: 63 months
Paul Manafort: Gave Trump's polling data to a Russian agent while they were meddling in our election: 47 months
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https://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/will_bunch/free-reality-winner-whistleblower-american-hero-20180724.html
Posted: July 24, 2018 - 2:00 PM
by Will Bunch
Last week's news that special counsel Robert Mueller had the goods on 12 high-level Russian spies whose job was to hack computers and muck up America's 2016 presidential election was a political bombshell but also a resounding vindication for a 26-year-old Georgia woman with the wonderfully poetic name of Reality Winner.
In the spring of 2017, with public concern mounting about the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, federal officials still sought to assure people that there'd been no major success in penetrating electronic voting systems. But Winner, a commended Air Force veteran with a top-secret security clearance, then working for a government contractor, had seen evidence that federal officials weren't telling the whole truth.
And so Winner did what Daniel Ellsberg, Mark Felt, and others whose difficult decisions made in real time have long since been vindicated by history had done: She blew the whistle. In sending her evidence to the news media, Winner took down a cover-up of information that the Russians had, in fact, been far more aggressive and successful in targeting voting systems. Indeed, one major electronic voting-records vendor, later identified as VR Systems, had been hacked into, and Russians then used that information to target voting officials in the critical swing state of Florida with "spear-phishing" emails aimed at compromising their computer networks.
Several key state officials said no one had warned them about the Russian scheme until the leaked memo from the National Security Agency, or NSA, appeared in The Intercept in June 2017. To them, Winner's leak was a form of public service. And both the validity of the information, and its seriousness, was confirmed last week when the hacking of VR Systems and other underreported Russian efforts to gain access to voter rolls was a centerpiece of Mueller's indictment.
malaise
(269,193 posts)Get thee to the greatest page
Chin music
(23,002 posts)You're a WINNER.
alwaysinasnit
(5,075 posts)catbyte
(34,459 posts)EndGOPPropaganda
(1,117 posts)Squinch
(51,025 posts)I think Reagan added "shining."
To paraphrase, the original quote said, "We all have to be vigilant and do what is right because we are like a city on a hill. Everyone is watching us. Everyone can see what we are doing. If we fail, if we are seen to be lax or unethical, we will become a byword."
Meaning, our hypocrisy and failure will never be forgotten and if we fail, our name will become the meaning of failure.
The REAL meaning of the quote seems much more apt right now.
Baitball Blogger
(46,761 posts)Chin music
(23,002 posts)Poor kid.
BigmanPigman
(51,636 posts)Manafort is not fit to lick the bottom of her shoes. Traitor!
BSdetect
(8,999 posts)Response to .99center (Original post)
Cetacea This message was self-deleted by its author.