EKIA

Between January 2012 and February 2013, of the more than 200 people killed by drone strikes under the program in Afghanistan, only 35 were the intended target. The program involved collecting cell phone data on a global scale, and assigning “death sentences without notice, on a worldwide battlefield,” as Hale described to Jeremy Scahill at the Intercept, who published Hale’s leaks in 2014 under the name The Drone Papers.

In a recent interview, Kevin Gosztola writing at Shadowproof explained that while media sources were generally aware of the rampant drone bombing under Obama, the major revelation of Hale’s whistleblowing was that any unintended victim of a drone attack was immediately labeled an “enemy killed in action,” with a policy of reversing that designation exclusively under circumstances where program-approved inspectors confirmed otherwise with investigations on the ground, which nearly never happened.

“I came to believe that the policy of drone assassination was being used to mislead the public that it keeps us safe,” Hale told the court, “and when I finally left the military, still processing what I’d been a part of, I began to speak out, believing my participation in the drone program to have been deeply wrong”.

During the trial, prosecutors Gordon Kromberg and Alexander Berrang requested the court be cleared so that classified information could be shown to the judge which they alleged demonstrated Hale’s leaks created a severe threat to national security, as the confidential names, positions, and information could inform “the most vicious terrorists in the world,” to create plans to attack national security interests.

They refused to disclose anything shared during the clearance for transparency and fairness, which consisted of an internet compilation of Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) training manuals that allegedly contained information revealed in Hale’s leaks.

Their hope was to gain a harsher than nine-year sentence as part of a “deterrent” to employees “using positions in the intelligence community for self-aggrandizement”. However the judge ruled in favor of the defense which argued that any IS-affiliated entity treated the documents the way a hunter treats a deer skull rather than anything that might inform a tactical advantage in terrorist plots, given that online publication, and US observation of it, would immediately remove any tactical advantage that the documents might otherwise have given.

The judge also determined that a deterrent sentence was not appropriate, as Hale acted on his conscience, and didn’t weigh material or other gains versus the potential for jail time.

The unofficial legal advisor to Hale and whistleblower convicted under the Espionage Act, John Kiriakou, was at the trial, and said in a radio interview with Antiwar Radio that with good behavior, time already served, substance abuse recovery programs, and a halfway house, Hale’s 45 months could look much more like 24 months, or even fewer. WaL

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