SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) \u2014 A woman charged with leaking U.S. secrets must remain jailed until her trial, a federal judge ruled Thursday, saying her release would pose an \u201congoing risk to national security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reality Winner, 25, is a former Air Force linguist who worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency at a facility in Augusta, Georgia, when she was charged in June with copying a classified U.S. report and mailing it to a news organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Winner\u2019s defense attorneys asked a judge to reconsider releasing her on bail after her trial date was postponed from October to next March. They argued Winner had no prior criminal history and served admirably in the military. Winner\u2019s mother in Kingsville, Texas, planned to move to Georgia to ensure her daughter obeyed any terms of her bond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian K. Epps sided with prosecutors in ruling that keeping Winner jailed is the only way to ensure she doesn\u2019t flee overseas or leak more secret information. The judge referenced prosecutors\u2019 transcript of a Facebook chat in February in which Winner wrote to her sister: \u201cLook, I only say I hate America like 3 times a day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBy her own words and actions, (Winner) has painted a disturbing self-portrait of an American with years of national service and access to classified information who hates the United States and desires to damage national security on the same scale as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden,\u201d Epps wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Assange is the founder of the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. Snowden is a former NSA contractor who leaked classified material exposing U.S. government surveillance programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The judge also said evidence against Winner appears strong, noting she confessed to FBI agents that she leaked a classified document and made similar admissions to relatives in recorded jailhouse phone calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Winner has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Authorities have not publicly described the document Winner is charged with leaking, nor have they identified the news organization that received it. But the Justice Department announced Winner\u2019s arrest on the same day The Intercept reported it had obtained a classified National Security Agency report suggesting Russian hackers attacked a U.S. voting software supplier before last year\u2019s presidential election. The NSA report was dated May 5, the same as the document Winner is charged with leaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A judge ruled Thursday that releasing 25-year-old Reality Winner on bail would pose an \u201congoing risk to national security.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"8":{"categories":["doj-fbi","federal-oversight","daily-brief","newsletters","home"],"primary_category":"doj-fbi"}}},"categories":[106,29,32],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2863],"class_list":["post-15524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"UAU5PYNEAFALXKCAMDFM7WKIT4","arc_canonical_url":"\/civilian\/fbi-doj\/2017\/10\/05\/judge-denies-bail-for-accused-nsa-leaker-citing-security-risk\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n