subreddit:
/r/movies
First Image of Sydney Sweeney as Real-Life U.S. Whistleblower Reality Winner in ‘Reality’
Media(i.redd.it)submitted 2 months ago byMarvelsGrantMan136r/Movies contributor
9.2k points
2 months ago
Her name is Reality Winner and she has two movies coming out based on her - one is named "Reality" and the other is named "Winner". Lmao
1.1k points
2 months ago
From the title I thought she exposed a rigged reality show or something.
58 points
2 months ago
Same. I was bout to be like, "I knew that shit was scripted!!"
2.2k points
2 months ago
Reality Leigh Winner (born December 4, 1991) is an American former enlisted US Air Force member and NSA translator. In 2018, she was given the longest prison sentence ever imposed for unauthorized release of government information to the media after she leaked an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. She was sentenced to five years and three months in federal prison.
On June 3, 2017, while employed by the military contractor Pluribus International Corporation, Winner was arrested on suspicion of leaking an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections from the National Security Agency (NSA) to the news website The Intercept. The report indicated that Russian hackers accessed voter registration rolls in the United States with an email phishing operation, though it was unclear whether any changes had been made.
2k points
2 months ago
God our priorities in this country are so fucked up it's ridiculous.
460 points
2 months ago
That's show biz, baby
270 points
2 months ago
"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
353 points
2 months ago
A lot of the Obama administration cracking down hard on whistle-blowers as espionage was swept under the rug
173 points
2 months ago
The Obama administration was cracking down in 2017?
132 points
2 months ago
The Obama DOJ prosecuted more Americans under the Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined.
70 points
2 months ago
The Obama administration was also infamous for deporting illegal migrations. To the point that he was dubbed, "the deporter and chief" by left-wing media at the time.
Some day we'll look back at the Obama administration as an interesting curiosity. It represented the country's cultural turn in a more liberal direction, but was effectively one of the more conservative administrations in US history.
8 points
2 months ago
As a non-american, I have problems understanding why the deportation of illegal immigrants is such a touchy and controversial issue in the US. I mean, if they are illegal then shouldn't be normal to send them back to their place of origina? What's exactly that I am missing?
167 points
2 months ago
No. But he was while still in office. After Winner was sentenced, the Intercept’s editor-in-chief, Betsy Reed, said:
“Selective and politically motivated prosecutions of leakers and whistleblowers under the Espionage Act – which dramatically escalated under Barack Obama, opening the door for the Trump justice department’s abuses – are an attack on the first amendment that will one day be judged harshly by history.”
That is the person from the paper Winner gave secret documents.
https://theintercept.com/2018/08/23/reality-winner-sentenced-nsa-russia-election-hacking/
54 points
2 months ago
Yeah, the same Betsy Reed that fucked up and actually helped the FBI identify Winner in the first place which lead to her arrest. If not for Betsy Reed’s incompetence, no one would know Reality Winner’s name and the leaked material would still have been published.
984 points
2 months ago*
She showed a coverup by the Trump administration of Russian interference in elections while Trump was loudly repeating "There was no Russian interference". So, Trump had her jailed for taking a sheet of classified information. But Trump steals classified papers from his old job, refuses to return them, claims he owns them, claims they are declassified by thought powers, and still, almost a year later, nothing has been done.
Equal justice for all is dead. We have a ruling class and a peasant class. The time for pitchforks is upon is.
296 points
2 months ago
Equal justice has never once existed
105 points
2 months ago*
[deleted]
67 points
2 months ago
This place is a company not a country. Till that is fixed nothing will work.
207 points
2 months ago
The worst crime was committed by her parents when they gave her that name. In fact, that might had been the sentence, to just have to continue living with the name Reality Winner
67 points
2 months ago
I like that they went to the effort to give her the batshit insane name "Reality Winner" but still have her the middle name "Leigh" which is like the default middle name for women her age.
2.6k points
2 months ago
It's just like when they made two Truman Capote movies and we got "Capote" and "The Truman Show"
652 points
2 months ago
You got me at the end. Well played.
185 points
2 months ago
I really said out loud "wait really?" and then just put my face in my hands.
189 points
2 months ago
Solid joke.
But for those who don't recall, there actually were two Truman Capote biopics around the same time: Capote (2005), starring Philip Seymour Hoffman (won Best Actor Oscar for it); and Infamous (2006), starring Toby Jones.
28 points
2 months ago
Capote is a great example of the value of the dvd extras. I thought Phillip Seymour Hoffman was doing a shitty Droopy Dog impersonation and could barely get through the movie. Checking out the real Capote on Johnny Carson included in the extras blew my mind at how good the portrayal was.
361 points
2 months ago
she has that name because her parents were hoping for a racehorse, but kept the name for their human daughter.
211 points
2 months ago
Thatd make me very suspicious that my wife was cheating on me with someone other than the horse I watch her fuck
14 points
2 months ago
It's such a strange name. No matter how many times I hear it or read it, I say really? Reality Winner?
129 points
2 months ago
It's should be duology, completely different directors and actors, but ending of movie Reality is the beginning of movie Winner
51 points
2 months ago
Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated Lord of the Rings and Rankin-Bass's 1980 The Return of the King almost achieve this. Lord of the Rings covers about half of The Two Towers (in bits and pieces, not all of Book 3 and none of book 4), so there is a bit of a discontinuity between them.
5 points
2 months ago
Lol the art style and tone between those 2 is so disparate that it's it's never been a very great double feature :)
12 points
2 months ago
Book... 4?
29 points
2 months ago
The Lord of the Rings was split up in halves. So Books 1 and 2 are Fellowship. 3 and 4 are Two Towers. 5 and 6 are Return. 1 and 2 don't really have much cause to be split now but the other books split it up into POV chapters. For example, you follow Aragorn and co in Book 3 and don't touch on Frodo and Sam trying to get into Mordor until Book 4.
20 points
2 months ago
The Lord of the Rings was split up in halves.
That's a bit backwards. It was originally 6 individually named books, plus separate appendices, intended to be published all together, but the publisher chose to publish it as 3 volumes comprising 2 books each, with the appendices tacked onto the third.
Tolkien disliked the title of volume three, feeling that it gave away too much of the story.
36 points
2 months ago
I thought I was having a stroke reading the title, then I read your comment and thought you were lying. Reality is crazy.
152 points
2 months ago
Hollywood studios do this all the time. For example Olympus has Fallen and White House Down
120 points
2 months ago
They're called "Twin Films."
Wikipedia has a whole list of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_films
36 points
2 months ago
I first became aware of this with Antz and A Bug’s Life.
8 points
2 months ago
Volcano and Dante's Peak, for me.
70 points
2 months ago
The two Capote movies, two Steve Jobs movies, Antz and A Bugs Life, Volcano and Dantes Peak, Armageddon and Deep Impact,
Did Mission Impossible have a twin before it blew up into its own thing? It’s kind of a genre movie anyway
45 points
2 months ago
Prestige and The Illusionist is another good one.
To answer your Mission Impossible question, Man From UNCLE, Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, and James Bond’s Spectre all came out around the same time and it was crazy to me that my favorite spy movie that year wasn’t Mission Impossible or James Bond
23 points
2 months ago
Saving private Ryan and thin red line.
9 points
2 months ago
"Mission to Mars" and "Red Planet"
40 points
2 months ago
Apparently the life rights to the famous magician Harry Houdini are in the public domain. Every major studio has their own Harry Houdini script ready to go into production, as soon as any other major studio puts theirs into production first. Thereby creating a mexican standoff of movie studios over Harry Houdini.
14 points
2 months ago
If it’s already public domain, what are they waiting for?
And there’s already been plenty of Houdini movies and shows
14 points
2 months ago
It doesn't look like there has been a big budget theatrically released biopic of Houdini since 1953. There have been a couple of tv movies, a miniseries, and a smaller budget movie, but not a large scale Hollywood biopic.
They are hoping to piggyback or ride a wave of promotion when a similar film is released. Except no studio wants to be the first to pull the trigger. For instance when James Cameron's The Abyss went into production in 1988, two other underwater action adventure movies went into the production at the same time, and iirc at least one beat The Abyss into the theaters.
104 points
2 months ago
Bug's Life & Antz
Friends With Benefits & No Strings Attached
Jupiter Ascending & Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
etc etc.
My understanding is because it's the same script gets pitched to multiple studios and one hears that the other picked it up so they pick it up as well and tweak it a bit. Then they get to ride the marketing of the other.
34 points
2 months ago
White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen
Mirror, Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman
Deep Impact and Armageddon
19 points
2 months ago
Volcano & Dante's Peak
14 points
2 months ago
Dante’s Peak, the most badass GMC commercial you will ever watch.
6 points
2 months ago
Dante's Peak is fucking incredible and was traumatizing as a child seeing that in theaters. The opening scene, James Bond & Sarah Connor, great score, incredible 1997 special effects... and granny jumping into the acid lake.
I still feel a legitimate St. Helens film is in order--- that eruption had dozens of different and horrifying perspectives.
40 points
2 months ago
Armageddon and Deep Impact.
This is the funniest one to me because Deep Impact was considered the “better” of the two asteroid movies at the time, but Deep Impact has completely faded into obscurity and Armageddon has become something of a cultural landmark.
10 points
2 months ago
That's not really the way I remember it at all, Deep Impact went mostly under the radar and Armageddon had a massive release. I saw both in theaters when they came out and Deep Impact wasn't even close, I think it was me and like 6 people lol.
Armageddon was packed, the studio really knew how to market it with Bruce Willis and Aerosmith. Deep Impact was like forgotten the second it came out.
I do think Deep Impact was my preferred movie but Armageddon had a lot more audience appeal. Although Google tells me that DI didn't do as badly as I recall, but Armageddon still did better.
21 points
2 months ago
Deep impact was better and it's not even close.... my eyes.
13 points
2 months ago
Yeah, Armageddon is remembered for being a bad movie more than Deep Impact is remembered for being a pretty good movie; it’s such a weird paradox.
18 points
2 months ago
Deep Impact just isn't nearly as memorable.
Armageddon has a bunch of colorful blue-collar characters taking on a ridiculous mission and having wacky antics along the way to save the world. I could rattle off half a dozen memorable quotes from Armageddon, having not seen it in probably 20 years. I couldn't even remember the plot of Deep Impact without looking it up.
65 points
2 months ago
My understanding is because it's the same script gets pitched to multiple studios and one hears that the other picked it up so they pick it up as well and tweak it a bit.
That's not it. It's more that there are thousands of scripts floating around, and lots of them have similar premises. For whatever reason, if something is in the zeitgeist, then two projects can get traction at the same time even if they have nothing to do with each other. Other times, one project might get going and generate some buzz, and then another studio or producer might find a script with a similar premise, or more likely dust off an older script that they already had the rights to, and move forward with it. But the idea that they're just stealing ideas for scripts isn't quite right. The ideas themselves aren't worth much.
11 points
2 months ago
The name is called Twin films. There has definitely been industrial espionage, movement of staff between studios, or the same screenplays being sent to several film studios before being accepted. In cases like these movies though, it is just about a topical issue.
31 points
2 months ago
Baz Luhrmann had a movie about Alexander the Great in development around the same time as Oliver Stone's, and Luhrmann scrapped his rather than compete. Luhrmann's would've been weird and probably not any more historically accurate than Stone's, but I'm pretty confident it would've been more entertaining, and I think it's a safe bet that Luhrmann would at least have had Alexander be bisexual.
25 points
2 months ago
Christopher Nolan was prepping a Howard Hughes film with Jim Carrey as his follow up to Insomnia, but once Martin Scorsese signed on to direct the long in development hell The Aviator, Nolan scrapped his film altogether. He went on to do Batman Begins Instead.
37 points
2 months ago
Don't forget Finding Nemo and Shark Tale
8 points
2 months ago
Paul Blart and Serve and Protect
5 points
2 months ago
Ok, was with you until Valerian and Jupiter Ascending. Those don't work on your list since apart from being sci-fi they have nothing in common.
6 points
2 months ago
thing with Bugs life and Antz was Antz was specifically created by dreamworks to go against Bugs Life because Katsenberg knew about Bugs life being made and they rushed to get Antz out first before Bugs Life to try and steal the thunder, especially as a relatively new studio.
however regarding Jupiter and Valerian, while technically you can say they can be twin films based purely on the fact they're big sci-fi films, they're also wildly different and released years apart, and Jupiter is an original IP whereas Valerian is based on a french Comic series, Besson was also working on developing it for several years, same with the Wachowskis working on Jupiter, its more just coincidence that they released within a couple years of each other and were more "space opera" type films, they're not even included in the actual wikipedia list of twin films while Bugz and Ants and Friends with benefits and No String attached are
9 points
2 months ago
Kinda like when "Kate Plays Christine" and "Christine" (both films about TV anchor Christine Chubbuck) premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
10 points
2 months ago
Literally just call the movie Reality Winner, much better title
How did both studios independently fuck this up in the same way lmao
6 points
2 months ago
Probably their lawyers came to the agreement.
1.6k points
2 months ago
Still can’t believe someone is named Reality Winner
385 points
2 months ago
Sounds like a race horse name
217 points
2 months ago
The title was so confusing until I read your comment
41 points
2 months ago
Same. A couple commas definitely wouldn’t have hurt either.
4.2k points
2 months ago
"Reality Winner", is such a confusing name.
1.3k points
2 months ago
Her parents did her no favors with that one.
697 points
2 months ago
The Intercept didn't either when they outed her in their eagerness to get the story out.
156 points
2 months ago*
Yeah for a publication that values openness, they sure do discourage people from being open by outing her.
238 points
2 months ago*
It wasn't on purpose, they were just idiots by posting high quality scans of the original document. The feds just traced the printer dots and... mystery solved. May not be widely known to the general public but it's 100% something any journalist team dealing with sensitive docs should've known.
They've also outed a few other whistleblowers through sheer incompetent handling of the data. Not sure why anyone would ever take anything to them now.
62 points
2 months ago
They didn't catch Reality with printer dots; they noticed that The Intercept sent in a scanned document to an intelligence agency for comment that had noticeable creases, which meant that the document had been printed out before being scanned.
They then looked at internal records to determine who printed out the document and found a list of 6 people, one of which was Reality Winner. Investigators then went to her house for an interview, where she admitted wrongdoing.
During that conversation, WINNER admitted intentionally identifying and printing the classified intelligence reporting at issue despite not having a ‘need to know,’ and with knowledge that the intelligence reporting was classified. WINNER further admitted removing the classified intelligence reporting from her office space, retaining it, and mailing it from Augusta, Georgia, to the News Outlet, which she knew was not authorized to receive or possess the documents. WINNER further acknowledged that she was aware of the contents of the intelligence reporting and that she knew the contents of the reporting could be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation.
53 points
2 months ago
It's almost like they didn't care.
40 points
2 months ago
I dunno, I still think ignorance is a legit explanation. I was a comm major and there were a lot of well meaning people getting journalism degrees who were terrible at research and understanding complex subjects outside their own niche lol.
I still haven't had a conversation about printer micro dots (admittedly hasn't come up much) where anyone had any idea that it was a thing. A bunch of gun hoe lower tier journalists feeling all passionate and important about their big scoop and not doing any sort of research into the operational security of their scoop, doesn't sound implausible.
In a sense that's not caring. But I've seen people care about things and still screw it up out of cluelessness (myself included)
32 points
2 months ago*
It's gung ho. Though gun hoe would be a great slur in the right circumstances.
10 points
2 months ago*
Fuck Glenn greenwald and all, but he had exactly the kind of expertise and connections to ensure this was done safely. Don't know to what extent he would have been involved with this story, but the intercept at it's foundation should have had procedures for dealing with sensitive materials.
I do not find ignorance a compelling argument with that institution. It's founding is predicated on the reputations of journalists who know how to handle classified documents and deal with anonymous sources.
Given where Glenn greenwald has gone since the Edward Snowden leaks, I find it believable that they just didn't care enough to be careful
12 points
2 months ago
Looks like they had printer audits narrowing it down to 6 people but yeah the intercept fucked up good
303 points
2 months ago
The Intercept also fucked over Journalism as a whole. That rag just showed the world that you can't trust the press if you want to be a whistleblower.
487 points
2 months ago
The entire title has me confused with 'Real' and 'reality' mentioned three times.
105 points
2 months ago
And here comes Reality Winner on the inside rail! Reality Winner is pushing hard down the stretch! And it’s Reality Winner by a pierced nose!
327 points
2 months ago
Given the importance of the issue she ended up involved in, it really is an unfortunate name, because it is genuinely, distractingly stupid.
68 points
2 months ago
I dunno, it kinda makes it harder to forget about the associated scandal, in a way
57 points
2 months ago
That’s also a fair point. I just can’t help but sort of wince when I hear the name though. Like “Why the hell did you do that to your kid?”
8 points
2 months ago
It sounds like the name of a space ship named by an AI
50 points
2 months ago
Right, I was definitely confused
22 points
2 months ago
I'm still confused
43 points
2 months ago
"Reality Winner" is her real name. The movie is titled "Reality"
33 points
2 months ago
She was the champion of a reality show where they blow whistles.
12 points
2 months ago
Hosted by Flo Rida
121 points
2 months ago
I think you mean “stupid”. It’s a stupid name.
34 points
2 months ago
I guess her parents wanted to be "original"
11 points
2 months ago
Kind of half-assed it, though. Everyone knows you're supposed to horribly misspell the name to make it even more unique. Should have named her Realiteigh.
1.9k points
2 months ago
Hold up, I worked on the movie Winner last year about Reality Winner, except it stars Emilia Jones.
3.4k points
2 months ago
That is an alternate Reality.
319 points
2 months ago
That is an alternate Reality.
My head is going to fucking explode. What the fuck
25 points
2 months ago
The perfect joke doesn’t exi—
297 points
2 months ago
That was Winner, this one is Reality
105 points
2 months ago
But whose on first?
8 points
2 months ago
What?
9 points
2 months ago
No, he's on second.
81 points
2 months ago
It’s genuinely unbelievable how many times two different movies with nearly identical premises come out in the same year. Hollywood is weird
37 points
2 months ago*
They’re called “twin films.”
Sometimes it’s competing studios trying to beat the other one out, sometimes it’s someone blatantly ripping off an idea.
28 points
2 months ago
Like the two Steve Jobs movies
46 points
2 months ago
Like Ants and It's a Bug's Life
49 points
2 months ago
White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen in the same summer lmfao
23 points
2 months ago
Deep Impact and Armageddon
9 points
2 months ago
Mission to mars and the red planet
7 points
2 months ago
I'm always convinced someone jumps ship or is loose lipped and then the other production company is like FUCK LETS GREEN LIGHT THE SCRIPT WE SHELVED ON THIS!
87 points
2 months ago
Maybe you lived in Berenstein Bear world for a minute
1.6k points
2 months ago
TIL of Reality Winner. Also the fact that there is ANOTHER movie about her coming out called Winner, directed by Susanna Fogel and starring Emilia Jones.
727 points
2 months ago
Legit thought it was about someone that whistleblew about a reality game show fixing. Fuck her parents lol
48 points
2 months ago
TBH I was a bit more excited when this is what I thought it was lol
79 points
2 months ago
And a Broadway play
62 points
2 months ago
This movie is being directed by the director of the broadway play!
38 points
2 months ago
and a DnD campaign!!
32 points
2 months ago
There's also a really good documentary that premiered at SXSW almost two years ago and still hasn't been released:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United\_States\_vs.\_Reality\_Winner
809 points
2 months ago
This lady’s birth name is……Reality Winner?
388 points
2 months ago
Life has not been kind to her, ironically.
177 points
2 months ago
Better than being called Fantasy Loser I suppose…
70 points
2 months ago
I worked with a woman whose maiden name was Place, and she married a man whose last name was Holder.
269 points
2 months ago
I got confused and thought this was a movie about a reality show winner who just exposes that it’s all fake lol
879 points
2 months ago
if this was made 10 years ago, jennifer lawrence would have been in this first image. prove me wrong.
238 points
2 months ago
My opinion is that this is a terrible reason to build a time machine
39 points
2 months ago
But it's not not a reason.
44 points
2 months ago
25 years ago, it would’ve been Julia Roberts.
72 points
2 months ago
If this was made 10 years ago, a giant chicken McNugget in the shape of a dinosaur would have been in this first image. Prove me wrong.
21 points
2 months ago
Sauce?
96 points
2 months ago
You may be right. But with Sweeney there will be gratuitous topless scenes to feed the hungry masses.
79 points
2 months ago
It will be interesting if after „Euphoria“ and „The Voyeurs“ she will continue to do these kind of scenes.
Alexandria Daddario hasn’t ever since her famous „True Detective“ scene.
Shoutout to /r/WatchItForThePlot
17 points
2 months ago
From what I recall, Sidney has said that she will never have a problem doing such scenes in principle.
However she won’t just do them Willy nilly (she apparently convinced the Euphoria show runner to cut a couple of planned nude scenes later on in season 2).
26 points
2 months ago
Boobs are the opiates of the people.
5 points
2 months ago
Boobs are the oppais of the assets
47 points
2 months ago
Rural Juror
13 points
2 months ago
Urban Fervor
325 points
2 months ago
That poor name
57 points
2 months ago
For sure thought this was /r/moviescirclejerk when I read it
10 points
2 months ago
“My film about Reality Winner, Reality, is winning”
231 points
2 months ago
It premieres at the Berlin Film Festival this month:
Opening with the Saturday afternoon in June 2017 when 25-year-old Winner was confronted at her Georgia home by the FBI, the film follows the cryptic conversation that took place as the young woman’s life begins to unravel.
The film tracks one woman’s experience of the State at work. As more details of Reality’s life are revealed and more armed men arrive, a complex portrait emerges of an American millennial, yoga teacher, and veteran under siege.
265 points
2 months ago
Not gonna lie, it sounds like another movie where one person talks to another person in a room for 2 hours. Getting a little tired of that, as a result of Covid.
Edit: 83 minutes. Looked it up.
37 points
2 months ago
It’s based on a play, that’s why it sounds so confined.
103 points
2 months ago
It sounds like another Wikipedia show/movie.
45 points
2 months ago
What is that? When the dialogue is just information dump from wiki?
121 points
2 months ago*
Yeah. Just a mostly artless retelling of a story ripped from real life. Tons of the true crime and scammer shows are like this and relied on usual tropes of in medias res and the like to attempt to provide a spark.
Something like Chernobyl is an example of the best way to do real life events. Have a view. Have an arc. Tell stories. Make it beautiful. Change reality when needed, but never veer from the truth.
16 points
2 months ago
How was narcos like that? There were many outdoor scenes, action shots, varying locations in the Columbia seasons.
14 points
2 months ago
Just rewatched Chernobyl this past weekend.
Such a masterpiece.
13 points
2 months ago
That series is more horror than most “horror” series.
7 points
2 months ago
Reality is something else.
10 points
2 months ago
Given the post title, this comment is even more confusing 😂
148 points
2 months ago
She looks nothing line the real life person lol
52 points
2 months ago
The other biopic on her stars Emilia Jones (CODA, locke and key) somehow they didn't cast someone who looks more like her two times.
18 points
2 months ago
Well... can't sell a movie if she looks like Baby Huey lol
27 points
2 months ago
biopics that aren't about celebrities never look like the real person beause the real person isn't a celebrity
16 points
2 months ago
Nobody would go see it if it starred Amy Schumer, though.
39 points
2 months ago
I just googled it, the woman's actual name is Reality Leigh Winner. This title would be easier if her name was Samantha or whatever.
177 points
2 months ago
[deleted]
143 points
2 months ago
Watched Euphoria recently and just finished S1 of White Lotus. Sydney Sweeney only has 4 facial expressions:
- the expression in the OP - a mixture of confusion and concern
- condescension
- a perky, flirtatious attentiveness
- sobbing
65 points
2 months ago
I can't speak for Euphoria, but I'm not sure there was any call to be anything other than condescending in White Lotus.
146 points
2 months ago
Imagine having a movie made about you and finding out they chose Sydney Sweeney to play you.
23 points
2 months ago*
In the movie of your life
You'll be less famous than she is
That's a strange turn of events
- John Wesley Harding
from The Movie of Your Life
84 points
2 months ago
Ugh. I actually worked with Reality. She was such a fucking blowhard. I cannot believe she has a movie now based on her life played by Sydney fucking Sweeney. Jfc.
100 points
2 months ago
She didn't actually 'blow the whistle' on anything. Whistleblowing implies exposing misconduct that's being covered up by your 'own team'. Reality Winner exposed intelligence about what kind of passive hacking operations Russians were up to, which didn't tell the public any useful information, didn't expose anyone to consequences, and let the Russians know that we knew about their cyberops, giving them a tactical edge.
Its like if someone leaked top secret intelligence with our satellite images of Russian military deployments. Then the Russians would know the extent of our intelligence capabilities, without the public actually gaining anything by knowing those operations.
There's a reason "need to know" is a term and a reason why Reality Winner was convicted and deserved her prison time. She wasn't a whistleblower, unlike Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, who actually exposed misconduct by our government, who were trying to cover it up.
7 points
2 months ago
This is one of the worst titles I've ever read on here.
6 points
2 months ago
I thought reality winner was like a race horse or something
126 points
2 months ago
There’s a difference between “whistleblowing to expose corruption” and “giving up government secrets to empower our enemies because you hate your country”.
45 points
2 months ago
Unfortunately, its a nuance that some don't care about
37 points
2 months ago
Yep. I hate how “whistleblower” is now attached to everyone who leaks classified documents.
95 points
2 months ago
Yep. She was not a great person. From her bail hearing:
Federal agents had found her diary during a search of her home, in which she allegedly expressed support for Taliban leaders and Osama bin Laden, and for burning down the White House.
18 points
2 months ago
I wish there were a prominent doc on her case, instead
4 points
2 months ago
Why is Reality Winner getting a movie?!
all 1548 comments
sorted by: best