US Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale Receives 45-Month Sentence
Daniel Hale, a former US Air Force intelligence analyst who said guilt over American drone strikes led him to reveal information to a journalist, was sentenced to 45 months in prison for his whistleblowing on Tuesday 27 July. An eight part investigation into the US drone programme published by the Intercept in 2015 revealed the process by which people were put onto the terrorism watch list and the “kill list” for drone strikes, a process which involved the sign off of the US President himself.
Maintaining that Hale was not being prosecuted for his moral stance and that he had options other than disclosing classified information to a journalist, U.S. District Court Judge Liam O'Grady said the sentence was designed to deter other potential whistleblowers from talking to the press.
Prosecutors had asked for a nine-year prison sentence to make an example of Hale, who had pleaded guilty in March to one count of violating the World War I-era Espionage Act. Though shorter than the sentence prosecutors were looking for, 45 months remains the second-longest sentence handed down for a violation of the Espionage Act by a civilian court.
“This has been an odyssey that has occupied most of the better part of his adult life for basically committing the truth,” said Jesselyn Radack, one of the lawyers representing Hale.
In a handwritten letter addressed to the judge ahead of the sentencing hearing, Hale explained in detail the moral crisis he experienced during his military service and the nature of drone warfare, which he saw was widely misunderstood at home. During the hearing, Hale told the court that "I am here because I stole something that was never mine to take—precious human life.”
The deaths Hale witnessed and described included two sisters, three and five, killed by a drone strike aimed at their father. The bodies of the two sisters were found tossed in a dumpster. “Not a day goes by that I don’t question the justification for my actions,” Hale wrote. Daniel Hale served in the US Air Force from 2009 to 2013.
War on whistleblowers continues under Biden
While the Biden Administration has recently signaled a change in policy towards journalists, the use of espionage charges against whistleblowers continues apace.
Notoriously, the Obama Administration initiated more of these cases than all previous US presidential administrations combined. The rate of indictments accelerated even further during Donald Trump’s term in office.
The case against Daniel Hale is one of two cases in the Eastern District of Virginia that were considered but not pursued under the Obama Administration, only to be picked up again under Trump. The other case is that of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, which the Biden administration has decided to continue despite extradition from the UK being denied in a ruling at the beginning of the year.