Source: Associated Press
Ex-airman sentenced to 45 months for leaking drone info
By ERIC TUCKER
July 27, 2021
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A former Air Force intelligence analyst was sentenced to 45 months in prison on Tuesday for leaking top secret information about the U.S. government’s drone strike program to a journalist.
Daniel Hale of Nashville, Tennessee, has said he was motivated by guilt when he disclosed to an investigative reporter details of a military drone program that he believed was indiscriminately killing civilians in Afghanistan far from the battlefield.
In issuing the sentence, U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady cited the need to deter others from disclosing government secrets and told Hale that he had other options besides sharing classified information with a reporter.
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. As in other other leak cases, the arguments Tuesday were less about whether Hale illegally shared information — he has openly acknowledged having done so — and more on whether the action harmed national security and the extent to which his motives should be taken into position.
Prosecutors have argued that Hale, who deployed to Afghanistan in August 2012 and was honorably discharged less than a year later, abused the government’s trust and knew the documents he was sharing “risked causing serious, and in some cases exceptionally grave, damage to the national security” but leaked them anyway. The prosecutors say documents leaked by Hale were found in an internet compilation of material designed to help Islamic State fighters avoid detection.
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https://apnews.com/article/government-and-politics-dd3111dc6e49c373dea806428edd4321
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