(TargetLiberty.org) – A US airman turned anti-military activist has been jailed for just under four years after pleading guilty to giving secret information to a journalist. The renegade claims he wanted to save lives – but ended up protecting terrorists.
A former Air Force intelligence analyst says he leaked government secrets about the U.S. drone program in Afghanistan to a reporter because he felt guilt over participating in deadly strikes. Daniel Hale has pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act. https://t.co/0Mo03Wn31v
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 22, 2021
On July 27, a US district judge sentenced 33-year-old Daniel Hale to 45 months in prison for theft of classified documents. Hale, a former USAF intelligence analyst, was arrested in 2019 after handing documents on US drone strikes to left-wing media company The Intercept several years earlier. In court, he defended himself by claiming he “stole something that was never mine to take — precious human life.” He then begged forgiveness for “taking papers instead of human lives.”
Judge Liam O’Grady wasn’t fooled by Hale’s sanctimonious self-justifications. Delivering his judgment, he pointed out that Hale wasn’t being jailed for speaking out about drone strikes; he was being prosecuted for stealing secret documents.
Even if Hale did act with honorable motives, he forgot that actions have consequences. If you hand American secrets to a journalist, you hand them to the world – and the world has bad people in it. Prosecutors showed the judge secret evidence that ISIS had circulated Hale’s documents to its members, helping them avoid drone attacks. The murderous group’s victims might have their own opinions on Hale’s twisted morality.
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