Ex-airman Sentenced to 45 Months for Leaking Drone Info
Voice of America
28 Jul 2021, 09:05 GMT+10
ALEXANDRIA, VA. - A former Air Force intelligence analyst who once helped find targets for deadly U.S. drone strikes was sentenced to 45 months in prison for leaking top-secret details about the program.
Daniel Hale, 33, told a federal judge he felt compelled to leak information to a journalist out of guilt over his own participation in a program that he believed was indiscriminately killing civilians in Afghanistan far from the battlefield. It is wrong to kill, Hale said in a defiant statement in which he accepted responsibility for his actions, but also pleaded for mercy. It is especially wrong to kill the defenseless.
Ex-Airman Who Leaked Secrets of America s Drone War Gets 45 Months in Prison gizmodo.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gizmodo.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The sentence was much
harsher than Hale s defense requested but not nearly as
harsh as US prosecutors pushed for, arguing that longer
prison sentences are necessary for deterring whistleblowing
in the US intelligence cartel.
The Dissenter s Kevin
Gosztola reports:
Despite
the fact that Hale pled guilty on March 31 to one of the
five Espionage Act offenses he faced, prosecutors remained
spiteful and unwilling to support anything less than a significant sentence to deter government employees or
contractors from using positions in the intelligence
community for
self-aggrandizement.
In other words,
if you tell the public the truth about your government s
crimes, you will be made an example of so nobody else tries
by Tyler Durden
Tuesday, Jul 27, 2021 - 10:00 PM
A former Air Force intelligence analyst turned whistleblower who leaked America s drone secrets to the press was
sentenced to 45 months behind bars in an Alexandria, VA federal court on Tuesday.
33-year old
leaker of classified info to
Intercept journalist Jeremy Scahill, who wrote a series of reports on the Obama administration s secretive drone program and the mounting civilian casualties - as well as the flimsy and dubious legal justifications offered based on war on terror rationale. I came to believe that the policy of drone assassination was being used to mislead the public, Hale wrote in an eleven page letter to the court.
Ex-airman Sentenced to 45 Months for Leaking Drone Info - New Delhi Times - India Only International Newspaper newdelhitimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newdelhitimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.