ALEXANDRIA, Va.: A former Air Force intelligence analyst pleaded responsible Wednesday to leaking categorized paperwork to a reporter about army drone strikes towards al-Qaida and different terrorist targets.
The responsible plea from Daniel Hale, 33, of Nashville, Tennessee, comes simply days earlier than he was slated to go on trial in federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia, for violating the World War I-era Espionage Act.
Hale admitted leaking roughly a dozen secret and top-secret paperwork to a reporter in 2014 and 2015, when he was working for a contractor as an analyst on the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). While courtroom papers by no means specified the recipient of the leak, particulars concerning the case make it clear that the paperwork got to Jeremy Scahill, a reporter at The Intercept, who used the paperwork as a part of a sequence of vital studies on how the army carried out drone strikes on international targets.
The unique indictment towards Hale states that he reached out to the reporter in April 2013 whereas nonetheless enlisted within the Air Force and assigned to the National Security Agency. The leaks continued after Hale turned a personal contractor and was assigned to NGA.
Hale’s attorneys sought unsuccessfully final yr to have the case tossed on First Amendment grounds. They additionally argued that the case was a selective and vindictive prosecution.
Defense attorneys stated that whereas Hale was being punished for leaking details about adverse points of the drone program, the federal government appeared unconcerned about nameless leaks by authorities officers about profitable strikes.
More broadly, they stated use of the Espionage Act towards whistleblowers has a chilling impact on free speech and a free press. The legislation has been utilized by a number of presidential administrations in recent times towards a number of whistleblowers. It additionally permits for prosecution of journalists who obtain and publish the knowledge.
The Eastern District of Virginia, the place Hale pleaded responsible, has been a frequent location over time for instances involving leaks and whistleblowers.
Prosecutors there have filed felony costs towards Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and towards former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Both stay abroad regardless of U.S. efforts to acquire their extradition.
In 2015, a choose imposed a 3 -year sentence on former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who was convicted of exposing authorities secrets and techniques to a New York Times reporter. In 2013, one other former CIA man, John Kiriakou, was sentenced to 2 years in jail after pleading responsible to leaking a covert officers id to a reporter.
Kiriakous indictment in 2012 prompted then-CIA Director David Petraeus to problem an announcement reminding his agencys workers of the necessity for secrecy of their work. In 2015, Petraeus pleaded responsible in federal courtroom in North Carolina to a cost of unauthorized removing and retention of categorized data. He was sentenced to probation.
Hale pleaded responsible to a single depend of illegally retaining and transmitting nationwide protection data, a part of the Espionage Act. The different 4 counts towards him weren’t dropped as a part of the plea deal, as can be typical, however had been positioned in abeyance, giving the federal government not less than the theoretical alternative to convey the opposite counts to trial.
Press and whistleblower advocates have urged President Joe Biden’s administration to reverse course in prosecuting leak instances, notably below the Espionage Act.
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