NSA leaker Reality Winner gets 63 months in prison

Aug. 23 (UPI) -- A former government contractor accused of leaking a secret report on Russia hacking the U.S. election was sentenced Thursday to more than five years in prison.

Reality Winner, 26, was accused of taking a Russian military intelligence report from the National Security Agency facility where she worked and sending it to the online news outlet The Intercept.

An article by The Intercept analyzed a classified NSA memo, dated May 5, in which the NSA detailed a cyberattack on a U.S. voting software supplier.

The Intercept provided a copy of its article to the NSA, reporting later that it did not know the identity of the person who provided the research.

The same day the Intercept report came out, the Justice Department announced it had arrested Winner. Her sentence is the longest ever given for a federal crime involving leaks to the news media. She also was sentenced to three years of supervised release.

Winner, who entered a plea deal had initially faced 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.