Hale pled guilty and took full responsibility for his actions. This information also provided concrete benefit to the legal efforts of Americans seeking to protect their Constitutional rights against secretive and arbitrary watchlisting practices. "The information, while politically embarrassing to some, has shone a vital light on the legal and moral problems of the drone program and informed the public debate on an issue that has for too many years remained in the shadows.
Hale’s release of information related to the drone program did not put any individual in danger,” wrote Rep. His motivation, as outlined in a letter to the judge in his case, was profoundly moral. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) wrote a letter to President Biden today urging for the use of his executive authority to pardon Daniel Hale. In July, Daniel Hale was sentenced to 45 months for leaking information on the United States government’s covert drone warfare program that provided important context in the public debate on surveillance and government misconduct.ĭaniel Hale previously served as an intelligence analyst in the Air Force, and after his service, became an outspoken critic of the drone program in which he had participated. Schmidt of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section prosecuted the case.WASHINGTON-Rep.
Berrang for the Eastern District of Virginia and Senior Trial Attorney Heather M. The FBI’s Baltimore Field Office investigated the case.Īssistant U.S. Lesko of the Justice Department’s National Security Division made the announcement. Hale pleaded guilty to retention and transmission of national defense information on March 31.Īcting Assistant Attorney General Mark J. In addition, Hale possessed on his home computer another document that he had stolen from NGA. He also possessed a thumb drive that contained a page marked “SECRET” from a classified document that Hale had printed in February 2014 and had attempted to delete from the thumb drive. Eleven of the published documents were marked as Top Secret or Secret.Īccording to court records, in August 2014, Hale’s cell phone contact list included contact information for the reporter. Of the 23 documents unrelated to his work at NGA, Hale provided at least 17 to the reporter and/or the reporter’s online news outlet, which published the documents in whole or in part. Each of the six documents printed were later published by the reporter’s news outlet.Īccording to court records, while employed as a cleared defense contractor for NGA, Hale printed 36 documents from his Top Secret computer, including 23 documents unrelated to his work at NGA.
In February 2014, while working as a cleared defense contractor at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), Hale printed six classified documents unrelated to his work at NGA and soon after exchanged a series of messages with the reporter. Hale admitted to meeting with the reporter in person on multiple occasions and communicating with the reporter via phone, text message, email and, at times, an encrypted messaging platform.
Air Force and assigned to the National Security Agency (NSA).
A Tennessee man was sentenced today to 45 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for illegally obtaining classified national defense information and disclosing it to a reporter.Īccording to court documents, Daniel Everette Hale, 33, of Nashville, began communicating with a reporter beginning in April 2013 while enlisted in the U.S.