A former intelligence analyst has been indicted for leaking classified information to the press, the U.S. Attorney’s Office
in the Eastern District of Virginia announced on Thursday.
The analyst has been identified as 31-year-old Daniel Everette Hale of Tennessee. Hale was arrested on Thursday morning in Nashville, where he will also appear in court.
Hale served as an airman in the U.S. Air Force from 2009 to 2013. Prosecutors noted that Hale was well-trained when it came to handling classified information. While enlisted in the Air Force, Hale worked at the National Security Agency (NSA) and was deployed to Afghanistan as an intelligence analyst. Prosecutors accused him of leaking classified information to a reporter while he was a contractor at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
The indictment says that Hale first met the reporter while in the Air Force in April 2013. Then, in February 2014, while at NGA, Hale allegedly “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.”
On one occasion the reporter sent Hale an email that included a link to a story about Edward Snowden. Hale would later remark, according to prosecutors, that he hung out with journalists and felt he may have gained “life long connections with people who publish work like this.”
Hale was further accused of printing “36 documents, including 23 documents unrelated to his work at NGA” from his Top Secret computer.
Hale faces charges for alleged disclosure of classified communications intelligence information, theft of government property, and charges for obtaining, retaining, transmitting, and causing the communication of national defense information.
Daniel Hale Indicted by Law&Crime on Scribd
[Image via Image via Paul j. Richards/AFP/Getty Images]
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