Intercept Editors Face Mounting Criticism for Possibly Outing Leaker

by Aidan McLaughlin | 11:48 am, June 6th, 2017

The editors of The Intercept are facing mounting criticism for potentially outing a source, after publishing a classified National Security Agency document sent to the website anonymously, which reportedly resulted in the arrest of an intelligence contractor.

About an hour after The Intercept published a report detailing Russian efforts to hack into US voting systems days before the November election, based on the NSA document, the Justice Department charged 25-year-old Reality Leigh Winner for leaking a classified report to a news website.

Winner is believed to be the source of the intelligence report, dated May 5, that was sent to The Intercept. According to an FBI affidavit, reporters from The Intercept reached out to an NSA contact in an attempt to verify the classified documents, sending the contact a hard copy.

After analyzing the document, the NSA “determined the pages of the intelligence reporting appeared to be folded and/or creased, suggesting they had been printed and hand-carried out of a secured space.” The agency further determined that only six people had printed out the document, and after an audit of those people’s computers, email communications were found between Winner and the news outlet she provided the documents to. After speaking with Winner at her home in Georgia, she confessed to sending the classified report to the news outlet.

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http://www.mediaite.com/online/intercept-editors-face-mounting-criticism-for-reportedly-outing-leaker/