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<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nReality Winner, the NSA contractor who leaked classified information to the media last year, changed her plea, as expected, to guilty of a charge of one federal count of willful retention and transmission of national defense information. It earned her a sentence of sixty-three months in jail and three years of supervised release, pending approval of the judge, according to the New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Justice Department prosecuted Ms. Winner under the Espionage Act, a World War I-era law that criminalizes the unauthorized disclosure of national-security secrets that could be used to harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary.<\/p>\n Ms. Winner\u2019s prosecution galvanized transparency advocates, who mounted a publicity campaign in her support that even included a billboard in Augusta, the east Georgia city where Ms. Winner lived at the time of her arrest. They were particularly infuriated by a judge\u2019s ruling that she be held until her trial.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re just coming down on her so tough,\u201d Billie Winner-Davis, Ms. Winner\u2019s mother, said in an interview after Tuesday\u2019s plea hearing was scheduled. \u201cI can only think that it\u2019s because she was the very first one: the one they wanted to make an example out of, the one they wanted to nail to the door as a message to others.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Or, it might be that they’re coming down on her because she’s a criminal.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s harsh, it\u2019s outdated, it needs to be reformed,\u201d Ms. Winner-Davis said. \u201cI wanted to fight the Espionage Act. Reality Winner, I don\u2019t want her name to go down as being someone in history who betrayed or hurt her country.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Maybe Miss Winner should have considered the consequences before she committed the crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"