Daniel Hale, a former U.S. Air Force and NSA intelligence analyst, served at Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield in 2013, helping identify targets for assassination. After becoming a National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency contractor, he leaked 17 classified documents to The Intercept in February 2014. Published as the “Drone Papers” in October 2015, the documents described secret kill lists, targeting procedures, civilian casualties, and rules for classifying people killed in strikes. Reporting based on the material said that, during one five-month period, nearly 90 percent of those killed were not the intended targets; claims that some conduct could constitute war crimes were reported as allegations requiring proof, not established court findings.
The leak also included unclassified guidelines for the U.S. terror watch list, which helped people on the No Fly List seek removal. The FBI raided Hale’s Virginia home on August 8, 2014, and prosecutors charged him in 2019 under the Espionage Act and related laws. Hale pleaded guilty in March 2021, and on July 27, 2021, Judge Liam O’Grady sentenced him to 45 months in prison, saying the punishment was intended to deter disclosure of government secrets. Hale was released on July 5, 2024. The case intensified debate over secrecy, civilian oversight, and the absence of a public-interest defense for national-security disclosures.
