Biography
Daniel Hale is a former U.S. Air Force intelligence analyst and former contractor at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. He was assigned to the U.S. drone program at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in 2012-2013, where his work in target identification gave him direct knowledge of how U.S. drone strikes designated and killed people who were not on any approved kill list. Beginning in 2014 he provided classified documents to journalist Jeremy Scahill, which formed the basis of The Intercepts 2015 Drone Papers — the most consequential public disclosure of the U.S. drone-warfare apparatus.
He was charged in May 2019 under the Espionage Act of 1917, pleaded guilty in March 2021, and was sentenced on July 27, 2021 by U.S. District Judge Liam OGrady in Alexandria, Virginia to 45 months in federal prison — the second-longest sentence ever imposed on a U.S. civilian whistleblower. He served at the federal Communications Management Unit at Marion, Illinois, and moved from prison to home confinement in February 2024. Home confinement ended July 5, 2024. Daniel E. Hale was a National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst who was arrested and indicted on allegations that he disclosed classified documents about the U.S. military’s assassination program, believed to have been the source material for a series in the Intercept called “The Drone Papers.” On March 31, 2021, Hale pleaded guilty to a single count under the Espionage Act, on July 27, 2021, he was sentenced to 45 months in prison.
Home confinement ended July 5, 2024; the ankle monitor was removed. This was not physical prison discharge. NR205.
The August 2, 2024 Nuclear Resister report dates Hale’s move from federal prison to home confinement to February 2024, without an exact day. His support team’s March 8 update independently confirms that he was already in home confinement. July 5, 2024 was the end of home confinement, not physical prison discharge. The former July 14 release endpoint and resulting 1,173-day uninterrupted prison total are not supported by these sources. The release month is retained without inventing a February day or an exact served-day total.
Sources: Nuclear Resister, August 2, 2024; Daniel Hale Support Network, March 8, 2024 update.
The September 24, 2021 report dates Hale’s guilty plea to one Espionage Act count to March 31, 2021, preceding his July 27 sentencing. It places him at Alexandria Detention Center before sentencing and reports a subsequent transfer to Northern Neck Regional Jail. His support team said he remained at Northern Neck as of September 24, despite an expected later transfer to Federal Medical Center Butner. The expectation is not treated as a completed transfer, and these locations do not constitute additional consecutive prison terms.
The Justice Department’s contemporaneous May 9, 2019 announcement states that Daniel Everette Hale was arrested that morning. This establishes May 9, rather than May 8, as the arrest date in this prosecution. The initial pretrial proceedings are separate from his later prison admission in April 2021; no physical release date is inferred from a pretrial release order.
Justice Department, May 9, 2019; The Nuclear Resister, May 10, 2019.
