Daniel Hale
In 2015, The Intercept published a series of stories that provided the most detail ever made public about the U.S. government’s unaccountable program for targeting and killing people around the world, including U.S. citizens, with drones. The disclosures were based on leaked classified documents.
In 2014, FBI agents raided the home of whistleblower Daniel Hale, a former NSA drone operator and later an outspoken anti-war activist, who they suspected of being the source.President Barack Obama’s Justice Department, though, declined to file any charges.
The Trump administration, on the other hand, was more than happy to prosecute the case. In 2019, Trump’s Justice Department charged Hale under the Espionage Act. After pleading guilty to one of the charges, he was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison.
