The Australian release of the film Reality — based on the true story of American whistleblower Reality Winner (yes, that is her real name) — interestingly coincides with our nation grappling with how to deal with its own whistleblowers.
The film’s title is a nod to not only Winner but director Tina Satter’s approach to the story, with the film’s dialogue lifted verbatim from a recording of an FBI raid of Winner’s home in 2017 and court transcripts relating to the investigation. It is “reality” in its starkest form.
Winner was a translator and intelligence agent working for a National Security Agency (NSA) contractor when she sent a classified document she found on an internal NSA website to an online news service, The Intercept. Winner and others later criticised the website’s mishandling of the document — after a reporter took it to the NSA for comment, they inadvertently exposed evidence divulging her as the source.
The NSA document in question revealed evidence that Russia had indeed tried to hack the United States 2016 elections and bend them towards Donald Trump. What incensed Winner was how the report directly contradicted the loud assertions of the president, who claimed no such thing had happened.
Winner was prosecuted under the Espionage Act and in a plea deal was ordered to serve five years in prison, the longest sentence handed down by a federal court for leaking classified information to the media.
Winner’s story highlights the contradictions inherent when the...
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