see url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/27/us/politics/daniel-hale-leak-sentence.html
see full story...Daniel Hale got 4 years for exposing man's inhumanity
to man...women and children...who were not terrorists...non-judicial
killing..."I was only obeying orders...Guv! No Nuremburg principles get
in the way today..
He got 4 years for breaking National Security...The Public Interest
defence did not get a look in...National Security is more important than
the mass killing of women and children...to paraphrase the words of the
judge. He didn't use the whistleblowing procedure...Would Joe Public
have heard about it from the government if he had...Of course not...New
laws proposed will make it even tougher for whistleblowers...Soon it
will refer not only to the whistleblower, but the publisher of the
whistleblower...no public interest defence allowed. Soon, it will be
only the government line which is broadcast, anything and everything
else will be suppressed in the name of good governance. The Intercept
will become a mouthpiece for the government and its secret and
intelligence agencies. and be paid accordingly...Only the "official"
line will be allowed...That's the way the cookie crumbles...Democracy
and transparency are just like dictatorships and fascism...they really
don't go together...The people must be kept in ignorance...and those who
reveal government inadequacies, incompetence and plain corruption and
double dealing, must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, in the
Public Interest, so that all this wrongdoing in the name of the citizens
can be justified by the leaders of society and their respectability and
openness preserved so that they can continue to run and govern
society...Not only the preserve of the Chinese or the Chinese
Communists, but the US GOP and the Democrats...and all other nation
states, they are all at it..."The price of liberty is eternal vigilance"
so says Lord Acton...
Quote<<<
A former intelligence contractor who disclosed details of the American
drone warfare program to a reporter was sentenced on Tuesday to nearly
four years in prison.
The former official, Daniel E. Hale, 33, was working as a contract
employee with a security clearance at the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency when he provided documents to a reporter
for The Intercept, a news site that specializes in intelligence matters.
He was originally charged in 2019 with various counts including
disclosing intelligence information and theft of government property. In
March, Mr. Hale pleaded guilty to retaining and transmitting national
defense information. On Tuesday, Judge Liam O’Grady of U.S. District
Court sentenced Mr. Hale to 45 months in prison.
According to court documents, Mr. Hale originally began communicating
with an investigative reporter in 2013, while he was in the U.S. Air
Force and was assigned as an intelligence analyst to the National
Security Agency. Then in February 2014, after leaving the Air Force and
becoming a contractor at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, he
gave classified documents to The Intercept.
While The Intercept has not confirmed that Mr. Hale was its source, at
the time of his indictment, Betsy Reed, the site’s editor in chief, said
the documents it published were of “vital public importance.”
“These documents detailed a secret, unaccountable process for targeting
and killing people around the world, including U.S. citizens, through
drone strikes,” she said.
While The Intercept has had high-profile scoops based on intelligence
documents, the government has also found, prosecuted and imprisoned two
of its sources. In addition to Mr. Hale’s conviction, Reality Winner, a
former National Security Agency contractor who anonymously sent a
document to The Intercept, was sentenced to 63 months in prison. Ms.
Winner last month was released early to a halfway house for good behavior.
>>>End of Quote
