Former Intel analyst Daniel Everette Hale, 31, of Nashville, Tennessee was arrested Thursday morning and charged with leaking classified information to a news outlet.
Hale, who was enlisted in the US Air Force from July ’09 to July ’13, has been charged with leaking classified documents about a military campaign against al-Qaeda to a reporter for The Intercept back in 2013 to 2014.
According to the indictment, Daniel Hale, who held a Top Secret//Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS//SCI) security clearance, gave 11 Top Secret documents to a reporter which were later published either in part, or whole online.
Via the Department of Justice:
According to allegations in the indictment, beginning in April 2013, while enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and assigned to the NSA, Hale began communicating with a reporter. Hale met with the reporter in person on multiple occasions, and, at times, communicated with the reporter via an encrypted messaging platform. Then, in February 2014, while working as a cleared defense contractor at NGA, Hale printed six classified documents unrelated to his work at NGA and soon after exchanged a series of messages with the reporter. Each of the six documents printed were later published by the reporter’s news outlet.
According to allegations in the indictment, while employed as a cleared defense contractor for NGA, Hale printed from his Top Secret computer 36 documents, including 23 documents unrelated to his work at NGA. Of the 23 documents unrelated to his work at NGA, Hale provided at least 17 to the reporter and/or the reporter’s online news outlet, which published the documents in whole or in part. Eleven of the published documents were classified as Top Secret or Secret and marked as such.
According to allegations in the indictment, in August 2014, Hale’s cell phone contact list included contact information for the reporter, and he possessed two thumb drives. One thumb drive contained a page marked “SECRET” from a classified document that Hale had printed in February 2014 and had attempted to delete from the thumb drive. The other thumb drive contained Tor software and the Tails operating system, which were recommended by the reporter’s online news outlet in an article published on its website regarding how to anonymously “leak” documents.
“Daniel Hale is charged with obtaining national defense information, retention and transmission of national defense information, causing the communication of national defense information, disclosure of classified communications intelligence information, and theft of government property,” the government said.
Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Recall, former NSA contractor Reality Leigh Winner was arrested and sentenced to more than 5 years in prison for leaking classified documents to The Intercept.
