{"id":26581,"date":"2021-07-27T20:27:47","date_gmt":"2021-07-27T20:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/07\/27\/ex-airman-sentenced-to-45-months-for-leaking-drone-info\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T20:11:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T20:11:50","slug":"ex-airman-sentenced-to-45-months-for-leaking-drone-info","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/your-military\/2021\/07\/27\/ex-airman-sentenced-to-45-months-for-leaking-drone-info\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-airman sentenced to 45 months for leaking drone info"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) \u2014 A former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airforcetimes.com\/news\/your-air-force\/2019\/05\/09\/ex-air-force-intelligence-analyst-charged-with-leaks-to-reporter\/\" target=\"_blank\">Air Force intelligence analyst<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt is wrong to kill,\u201d Hale said in a defiant statement in which he accepted responsibility for his actions, but also pleaded for mercy. \u201cIt is especially wrong to kill the defenseless.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But U.S. District Judge Liam O\u2019Grady told Hale he had other avenues for airing his concerns besides leaking to a journalist. Citing the need to deter others from illegal disclosures, he imposed a punishment that was harsher than the 12- to 18-month term sought by Hale\u2019s attorneys but significantly more lenient than the longer sentence sought by prosecutors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou could have resigned from the military,\u201d or told \u201cyour commanders you weren\u2019t going to do this anymore,\u201d O\u2019Grady told Hale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The prosecution is one in a series of cases the Justice Department has brought in recent years against current and former government officials who have disclosed classified secrets to journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/your-air-force\/2021\/07\/23\/ex-airman-guilt-over-drone-strikes-prompted-to-leak-secrets\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AP19129783095838.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Ex-airman: Guilt over drone strikes prompted to leak secrets<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">\u201cNot a day goes by that I don\u2019t question the justification for my actions,\u201d Hale wrote.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Attorney General Merrick Garland announced new guidelines this month to bar prosecutors from subpoenaing journalists\u2019 records in leak probes, but the department has shown no signs of scaling back efforts to charge officials whom they identify as having leaked national security information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prosecutors argued that Hale, who deployed to Afghanistan in August 2012 and was honorably discharged less than a year later, abused the government\u2019s trust and knew the documents he was sharing \u201crisked causing serious, and in some cases exceptionally grave, damage to the national security\u201d but leaked them anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The prosecutors said documents leaked by Hale were found in an internet compilation of material designed to help Islamic State fighters avoid detection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hale\u2019s stated rationale that he was trying to expose injustices surrounding the military\u2019s drone program has earned him support among whistleblower advocates and among critics of the government\u2019s war efforts, some of whom held supportive signs outside the courthouse and attended Tuesday\u2019s sentencing hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But prosecutors painted a different portrait. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg said the impact of Hale\u2019s actions was not to contribute to a public debate over war but rather to \u201cendanger the people doing the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Justice Department said Hale began communicating with a journalist in April 2013 while still in the Air Force. The following February, while working as a defense contractor at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Hale printed six classified documents that were each later published. All told, he admitted leaking roughly a dozen secret and top-secret documents to a reporter in 2014 and 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/your-air-force\/2021\/06\/14\/former-air-force-translator-nsa-contractor-in-leak-case-released-from-prison\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Winner-Reality.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Former Air Force translator, NSA contractor in leak case released from prison<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">Reality Winner was sentenced to five years and three months in prison, which prosecutors said at the time was the longest ever imposed for leaking government information to the news media.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While court papers never specified the recipient of the leak, details about the case make it clear that the documents were given to Jeremy Scahill, a reporter at The Intercept, who used the documents as part of a series of critical reports on how the military conducted drone strikes on foreign targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The arguments Tuesday were less about whether Hale leaked the records \u2014 he openly acknowledges doing so \u2014 but about his rationale for his actions and what role that should play in the sentence calculation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe committed the offense to bring attention to what he believed to be immoral government conduct committed under the cloak of secrecy and contrary to public statements of then-President Obama regarding the alleged precision of the United States military\u2019s drone program,\u201d defense lawyers wrote in a filing last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prosecutors painted Hale as eager to ingratiate himself with journalists, but Hale described himself as racked with angst over the role his actions may have played in the taking of innocent lives. He had served as a signals intelligence analyst, helping locate targets for drone strikes by tracking down cellphone signals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He said he had wanted to dispel the idea that \u201cdrone warfare keeps us safe,\u201d and the document he leaked showed the drone program was not as precise as the government claimed in terms of avoiding civilian deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reading aloud from a prepared statement, his voice occasionally cracking with emotion, Hale repeatedly took responsibility for his actions but expressed more regret over wartime actions than the \u201ctaking of papers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He said he was pained by the possibility that his actions in the drone program could have emboldened terrorists in the United States, referring to the case of Omar Mateen, the gunman who massacred nightclub patrons in Orlando, Florida, in 2016 and had explicitly demanded that the U.S. stop bombing Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hale described himself as racked with angst over the role his actions may have played in the taking of innocent lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":26137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":88,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[29,116,117,15,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3918],"class_list":["post-26581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-left-column","category-middle-column","category-news","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"M55UFJ7WGFFXNANFZUF5IWEFCY","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-air-force\/2021\/07\/27\/ex-airman-sentenced-to-45-months-for-leaking-drone-info\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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