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| Traitor Daniel Everette Hale - the indictment - Traitor Jeremy Scahill |
Daniel Everette Hale becomes the latest in a series of intelligence personnel to be charged with either treason, espionage, mishandling classified information or divulging classified material to unauthorized persons.*
This case is a bit different, however. Here we may have active collusion between a defense contractor (Hale) - with leftist "reporter" Jeremy Scahill. I realize it is a reporter's job to uncover government malfeasance, but in this case Scahill may have crossed the line between journalism and criminal activity.
Hale served in the U.S. Air Force from July 2009 to July 2013. During that time, he was assigned as a cryptologic linguist to the National Security Agency (NSA). During this assignment, Hale deployed to Afghanistan where he supported drone intelligence collection and kinetic kill/capture operations against a variety of targets.
After he left the Air Force in July 2013, he began work for a defense contractor with duties at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). During all of this time, Hale held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance. Hale was arrested on May 9 for unauthorized disclosure of classified information. Read the now unsealed indictment.
Reading federal indictments involves wading through a lot of legalese/law enforcement jargon. Here is a quick synopsis of what happened, and how Scahill acted more like a foreign intelligence officer rather than a professional journalist. In a perfect world, Scahill would be indicted as a co-conspirator and be in jail along with Hale.
In April 2013, while still on active duty and assigned to NSA, Hale sought out and personally met with Scahill in the Washington, DC. After that meeting, Scahill told Hale he wanted to tell "Hale's story" on drone operations in Afghanistan.
Contacts and meetings continued through July when Hale separated from Air Force, and beyond. Hale had provided his unclassified resume which described his participation in drone operations. He also revealed his experience in classification and declassification procedures, an indication that he fully understood the sensitive nature of classified material.
At this point, Scahill advised Hale to set up an encrypted chat capability using the Jabber program. In December 2013, Hale began work for defense contractor Leidos with duties at NGA headquarters on Fort Belvoir near Springfield, Virginia. Hale and Scahill used the encrypted chat program at least three times between September 2013 and February 2014.
Immediately after an encrypted chat on February 27, Hale accessed and printed one document marked Top Secret, and five documents marked Secret. None of the six documents were related to Hale's duties at NGA.
All six documents printed were later published in The Intercept, a publication of which Scahill is an editor and notorious for publishing classified government documents. It gained fame by publishing material provided to it by another traitor, Edward Snowden.
While employed as an NGA contractor, Hale printed 36 documents; 23 were unrelated to his duties at the agency. Of these 23 documents, Hale provided at least 17 to the Scahill; all were subsequently published in The Intercept.
On a related note, forensic analysis of Hale's computers and devices indicated the presence of Tor software and the Tails operating system, which were recommended by The Intercept in an article on how to anonymously “leak” documents. I am sure this is not coincidental.
As a professional intelligence officer, I consider what Scahill did to be tasking. In fact, since Hale obtained employment with Leidos that would place him at NGA headquarters, it will be interesting to find out if Hale was encouraged (tasked) to seek that job position by Scahill.
It further appears that since Hale began providing documents to Scahill almost immediately after beginning work at NGA, this amounts to what we in the intelligence business call "collection tasking." Note that Hale only worked for the contractor for a total of eight months, quitting one month after he provided the last document to Scahill. One could draw the conclusion that he accomplished what he had set out to do, or possibly fulfilled his taking, and then left the company.
We will eventually know exactly the relationship between the so-called journalist and his traitorous accomplice. In virtually all of these cases, the accused enters into a plea deal in return for lesser charges. In return, the accused agrees to provide a full accounting of his/her criminal activity.
Hale's lawyers will undoubtedly try the "whistleblower" defense. Whistleblowers, of course, deserve protection when they follow the guidelines. First, report via the chain of command, then the inspector general of the organization, and possibly even appropriately cleared congressional bodies. Note that the media is not among these channels.
Hopefully, Hale's future allocution will include details of Scahill's involvement into convincing, coercing, or even paying - Hale to violate his oath of allegiance to the United States, as well as a series of federal statutes.
Reporting on government operations is one thing - tasking, aiding and abetting the unauthorized release of classified national defense information is another.
We know Hale violated the law. If what Scahill did does not constitute criminal activity, it should.
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* See my earlier comments on two other former U.S. Air Force intelligence linguists who have been indicted and/or convicted of similar crimes.
- Reality (is the) Winner - former NSA contractor pleads guilty
- The indictment of former Air Force intelligence specialist Monica Elfriede Witt
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