ANTI-HUMAN RIGHTS, UNITED STATES
Papers Instead Of Human Lives: The Sentencing Of Daniel Hale
Written by Binoy KAMPMARK on 28/07/2021

In May 2019, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, that famous bastion of anti-whistleblowing fervour, unsealed an indictment charging former intelligence analyst Daniel Everett Hale with five counts of providing classified information to a reporter. The first four focused on obtaining national defense information, retaining and transmitting that information, causing the communication of that same information and disclosing classified communications intelligence information. The fifth alleged the theft of government property.

Yet again, the US government was making use of the beastly Espionage Act of 1917. Between 2009 and 2013, Hale worked with the US Air Force and National Security Agency. He was then contracted by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to work as a toponymist.

His work during his time in the NSA and as part of the Joint Special Operations Task Force – to identify targets for assassination for the US drone program – was performed at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. His sin, or what his attorney Jesselyn Radack prefers to call “committing the truth”, was to reveal classified documents revealing the distinct viciousness, and essential senselessness, of the US military’s drone program. His motivation: “to dispel the lie that drone warfare keeps us safe, that our lives are worth more than theirs.”

The contribution made by Hale in revealing the costs occasioned by drone deployment is impossible to diminish. The documents, numbering some 150, showed how the policy of selecting targets was presumptuous rather than thorough. The targeting was also far from precise.
In the context of whistleblowing, the disclosure of the watchlisting rulebook became almost canonical in significance. According to Betsy Reed, the editor-in-chief of The Intercept, which prosecutors imply to have been the recipient of Hale’s trove, the rulebook detailed “the parallel judicial system for watchlisting people and categorizing them as known or suspected terrorists without needing to prove they did anything wrong.” Such rules, also applicable to US citizens, could be used to bar individuals from flying and permit their detention in airports and at borders “while being denied the ability to challenge government declarations about them.” As Reed reminds us, the disclosure of the book fuelled “dozens of legal actions and important court victories for the protection of civil liberties.”

In March, Hale pleaded guilty to one count. Defence attorneys Todd Richman and Cadence Mertz argued in their submission that altruistic motives, along with the fact that the government had adduced no evidence showing that actual harm had arisen from the leaks, should be taken into account in sentencing. “He committed the offense to bring attention to what he believed to be immoral government conduct under the cloak of secrecy and contrary to public statements of then-President Obama regarding the alleged precision of the United States drone program.”

In a handwritten letter to Judge Liam O’Grady, Hale describes a world of trauma, doubt and mourning. There were the “bonding ceremonies” with peers over watching “war porn” featuring footage of previous drone strikes. “I sat by watching too; said nothing and felt my heart breaking into pieces.” There was the feeling of guilt as a defence contractor in participating in the “collective delusion and denial that was used to justify our exorbitant salaries”.

President Barack Obama’s remarks about the drone program again deserved a mention. The president had praised the certitude in such strikes and their cautious discrimination. “But from what I knew, of the instances where civilians plausibly could have been present, those killed were nearly always designated enemies killed in action unless proven otherwise.”

This was a form of war that could never claim to have a sliver of honour. “The victorious rifleman, unquestionably remorseful, at least keeps his honor intact by having faced off against his enemy in the battlefield,” Hale reflects. “But what possibly could I have done to cope with the undeniable cruelties that I perpetrated?”

In their sentencing papers, prosecutors Gordon Kromberg and Alexander Berrang countered by claiming that Hale’s actions enabled “the most vicious terrorists in the world” to obtain “documents classified by the United States as ‘Secret’ and ‘Top Secret’ – and thought that such documents were valuable enough to disseminate to their own followers in their own manuals.” Kromberg, just as he did with his efforts to extradite Julian Assange from the United Kingdom, has a rather fanciful view about what damaging the US national interest looks like.

The prosecutors even insisted that the harm caused by Hale was more severe than that of former NSA contractor Reality Winner’s disclosures. Winner’s sentence of five years was the harshest ever imposed on a whistleblower prosecuted for disclosing documents to a journalist in breach of the Espionage Act.

On July 27, Hale received his sentence of 45 months – less than Winner’s but brutal nevertheless. “I am here because I stole something that was never mine to take – precious human life,” he told US District Judge Liam O’Grady. “I couldn’t keep living in a world in which people pretend that things weren’t happening that were. Please, your honour, forgive me for taking papers instead of human lives.”

O’Grady’s remarks to Hale were full of the casuistry typical behind punishing whistleblowers. The gist here is that Hale could have done it differently. The prosecution had not thrown the book at him “for speaking out about the drone program killing innocent people”. “A majority of Americans would have commended you for coming forward.” Hale could well have remained a whistleblower “without leaking any of these documents, frankly.” A suggestion both implausible and foolish.

Using the press, in others, had been inappropriate, and probably the result of manipulation by the fourth estate. “I think you were motivated because of your conscience, but I also think you were motivated because of your desire to please the journalists.” The journalists in question “had to know you were facing almost certain prosecution, but they went forward and did what they did.” With such views as those held by O’Grady, the deep state will have every reason to crow with satisfaction.

Despite having little time for the avenue Hale took to manifest his concerns, the judge left room in his remarks to reproach the Air Force for the “inexcusable decision” of sending such a man to Afghanistan and assigning him the task of analysing video footage of drone strikes. Hale’s history of serious mental disturbance was ignored and his treatment, on returning, had been “a horrible injustice”.

The conviction and sentencing of Hale continues a tendency of successive administrations to target whistleblowers using a statute that negates the public interest defence. Altruistic motives are irrelevant to the means by which information is disclosed. In this case, exposing papers was far more serious to the imperium than the taking of human lives.
https://orientalreview.org/2021/07/28/papers-instead-of-human-lives-the-sentencing-of-daniel-hale/

Drone war intelligence agent who leaked documents to reporter sentenced to years in prison
Mariah Timms
Nashville Tennessean


A former intelligence agent who leaked classified national defense information to a Washington, D.C., reporter beginning in 2013 was sentenced Tuesday to nearly four years in prison.

In a handwritten letter to a federal judge before his sentencing, Daniel Everette Hale said he leaked the documents as a crime of conscience.

“My conscience, once held at bay, came roaring back to life. At first, I tried to ignore it. ... Left to decide whether to act, I only could do that which I ought to do before God and my own conscience. The answer came to me, that to stop the cycle of violence, I ought to sacrifice my own life and not that of another person," he wrote.

Tennessee ties to national case
Hale, 33, grew up in Bristol, Tennessee, court documents show. He struggled with college and dropped out before enlisting in the Air Force in 2009.

There, his intelligence and test scores quickly led to work in the highly technical drone warfare programs in which he was eventually deployed as a signals intelligence analyst.

He said it was his work in this program that prompted him to leak sensitive documents after an "internal breaking point."

After he left the Air Force and his work with the National Security Agency, he took a job with a defense contractor, where he had access to high levels of secure information and documents.

"He could not reconcile his conduct in Afghanistan with his rigid sense of right and wrong," Hale's attorneys, public defenders, wrote."He pinpoints the moment this occurred: an after-work gathering with respected peers that devolved into watching drone strikes as a form of entertainment."

In March, he pleaded guilty to federal charges against him under the Espionage Act. He admitted he leaked classified information about drone warfare and wrote anonymously about his experience. Hale's plea was made without an agreed deal with the government.

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Leaking documents to friendly reporter
While employed as a cleared defense contractor, Hale printed 36 documents from his top-secret computer, including 23 documents unrelated to his work, court documents show.

Hale provided at least 17 of the 23 documents to a reporter, who published them in whole or in part, a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office shows. Eleven of the published documents were marked top secret or secret.

Although one of the leaked documents was later included in a guidebook created by ISIS for its members on how to avoid detection by U.S. forces, attorneys on both sides agreed evidence the leaked documents caused actual harm was lacking.

Dozens of letters from friends, family and strangers around the world were included in Hale's petition for a light sentence.

One included a petition signed by thousands of people; another was from a teacher telling the judge she hopes her students live up to the moral courage she saw in Hale's actions.

Most asked the judge not to consider Hale a spy under the Espionage Act, but a whistleblower — with all the protections awarded to those covered under that term.

The letters included notes from friends and colleagues in Nashville, where Hale returned in the five-year period between an FBI raid on his apartment in 2014 and his 2019 arrest.

Attorneys for the government argued Hale leaked the documents for his own glory and to further a potential future career in journalism.

"Hale’s vanity overrode the commitments he made to his country. Hale was enamored of
journalists. As he explained in a chat recovered from his email account, he 'looked up to

[journalists] like rock stars,'" they argued in a motion for a heavy sentence filed last week.

But Hale's attorneys argued his actions came from a deep debate with his conscience about his actions during his service.

"Ultimately, he believed that he could make a difference in how the U.S. drone program was deployed, particularly with respect to innocent civilians, by leaking the classified documents," they wrote.

Hale was sentenced to 45 months in prison.

Rose Gilbert contributed. Reach reporter Mariah Timms at mtimms@tennessean.com or 615-259-8344 and on Twitter @MariahTimms.
https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2021/07/27/daniel-everette-hale-who-leaked-drone-documents-sentenced-45-months/5391160001/

Увы, нет больше СМИ и свободной журналистики в Штатах, марихуану скоро везде разрешат , для обкуренных сойдут эти фэйки и вбросы , задумываться особо не будут .

Мы все это уже проходили давно …[/quote]
Декабрь рехаб прошла? Наркоманила

А все из за вакцины. Тут то ли Чай, то ли Клубника, то ли еще кто то написал, что очень опасно стоять рядом с провакцинированными. Они shedding протеин, и месячные могут начаться даже у мужчин. А от месячных до беременности - недалеко. Особенно, когда все в одном человеке. Так мужики сами от себя и беременны.

_________________
о вкусах щас никто не спорит
шагнуло общество вперед
и тот с кем вкусы не совпали
автоматически мудак

The Era of Cheap Natural Gas Ends as Prices Surge by 1,000%


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-06/the-era-of-cheap-natural-gas-ends-as-prices-surge-by-1-000

_________________
Россия без каждого из нас обойтись может. Но никто из нас не может
обойтись без России.
Иван С. Тургенев



"Радость -есть особая мудрость"
Письма Е. И. Рерих 1929 - 1939. Том 2. письмо от 7. 5. 38.

8 августа 2021 NBC Оригинал
NBC: новый мрачный рубеж — суточное число заражений COVID в США превысило 100 тысяч человек
Материал представлен в переводе ИноТВ
Короткая ссылка
В США продолжает расти ежедневное количество заражённых коронавирусом. В среднем по стране от болезни умирают 500 человек в сутки. Власти страны надеются, что эти тревожные цифры подтолкнут американцев сделать прививку, сообщает NBC News.

США преодолели новые ковидные рубежи. За последние две недели число заражений в стране увеличилось более чем в два раза — свыше 100 тысяч в сутки, а очереди в центры тестирования напоминают о драматичной вспышке прошлого лета.

Флорида, эпицентр COVID-19 в стране, побила свой ежедневный рекорд. Только в пятницу в штате было зафиксировано более 23 тысяч заражений, а число госпитализаций превысило 13 тысяч. Машины тянутся вдоль дороги, в то время как изнывающие от жары семьи стоят в очереди (на тестирование. — ИноТВ) в Таллахасси.

Оригинал новости ИноТВ:
https://russian.rt.com/inotv/2021-08-08/NBC-novij-mrachnij-rubezh-

Двое мужчин из Северной Каролины были сбиты насмерть поездом на том же месте, где неделей ранее по той же причине погиб их брат. Об этом сообщил в субботу, 7 августа, портал NTD.

Двое молодых мужчин устанавливали мемориал погибшему родственнику. Они зажигали свечи и отдавали дань памяти покойному, когда на них наехал поезд. Братья 20 и 29 лет скончались на месте от полученных травм.

Представитель местной полиции заявил, что все средства безопасности, включая поперечные рычаги, фонари и звуковые сигналы, работали исправно.

Официальные лица при этом подозревают, что причиной трагедии могло стать состояние алкогольного опьянения у мужчин.

34-летнюю жительницу штата Индиана обвиняют в преднамеренном убийстве мужа и расчленении его тела. Об этом сообщает New York Times.

По данным полицейских, Фессалоника Ален застрелила своего мужа Рэнди, расчленила его с помощью топора и попросила помочь двух своих детей-подростков перевезти тело, чтобы сжечь.

«Дети заявили, что мама планировала отвезти машину и тело в Саут-Бенд и поджечь», – сообщили в полиции.

Представители правоохранительных органов задержали подозреваемую на стоянке магазина.

По версии следствия, женщина выстрелила в мужа несколько раз на почве семейной ссоры. Ночью она разбудила подростков и попросила помочь дотащить тело до машины, но оно оказалось слишком тяжелым.

На следующий день Фессалоника повторила просьбу о помощи. Когда ее дети попытались вытащить труп из квартиры, они заметили, что у него нет ног.

Женщину обвиняют в совершении правонарушений против несовершеннолетних и жесткое обращение с трупом.

25 миллионов интернет-пользователей подписали онлайн-петицию, призывающую провести расследование в отношении лаборатории «Форт-Детрик», сообщило вчера, 8 августа, ИА «Синьхуа».

17 июля китайские интернет-пользователи опубликовали петицию, призывающую Всемирную организацию здравоохранения /ВОЗ/ провести расследование в отношении биологической лаборатории США в Форт-Детрике. Сбор подписей завершился в пятницу. В итоге было собрано 25 миллионов голосов.

Онлайн-петиция, призывающая провести проверку лаборатории «Форт-Детрик», отражает широкое общественное мнение, сообщает газета Global Times, опубликовавшая ее в социальных сетях.

Как отмечается в петиции, расследование должно быть сосредоточено на происхождении Covid-19 и безопасности лаборатории.

В биологической лаборатории «Форт-Детрик» хранились опасные инфекционные вирусы. И в 2019 году до вспышки эпидемии Covid-19 была зафиксирована утечка, сообщила газета Global Times.

Петиция собрала 500 тысяч подписей за первые 24 часа и 1 миллион подписей за 48 часов после ее публикации, сообщила газета Global Times.

Когда число подписей приблизило


Подробнее: https://eadaily.com/ru/news/2021/08/09/peticiya-o-rassledovanii-v-otnoshenii-fort-detrika-sobrala-25-mln-golosov

Гучи,

ты зачем над Мари издеваешься?

_________________
-Полно, Борис Фёдорович, везде врагов искать.
-Дык я же не ищу...они сами нас находят. (с)

_________________
Россия без каждого из нас обойтись может. Но никто из нас не может
обойтись без России.
Иван С. Тургенев



"Радость -есть особая мудрость"
Письма Е. И. Рерих 1929 - 1939. Том 2. письмо от 7. 5. 38.

Вот это поворот




The Spectator (Великобритания): Ги Верхофстадт провозгласил победителем олимпиады Европейский Союз




https://inosmi.ru/social/20210809/250271582.html

_________________
Россия без каждого из нас обойтись может. Но никто из нас не может
обойтись без России.
Иван С. Тургенев



"Радость -есть особая мудрость"
Письма Е. И. Рерих 1929 - 1939. Том 2. письмо от 7. 5. 38.

Один сплошной идиотизм


Berlingske (Дания): американский университет избавился от «расистского» валуна



https://inosmi.ru/social/20210810/250282823.html

_________________
Россия без каждого из нас обойтись может. Но никто из нас не может
обойтись без России.
Иван С. Тургенев



"Радость -есть особая мудрость"
Письма Е. И. Рерих 1929 - 1939. Том 2. письмо от 7. 5. 38.

Девы, а вы читали про самоубийства полицейских, защищавших капитолий?

Что вообще происходит???

Two additional DC officers who responded to U.S. Capitol insurrection die by suicide
Chelsey Cox
Matthew Brown
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – Two District of Columbia police officers who responded to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol have died by suicide this month, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, bringing the total number of officers who have taken their lives after the riot to four.

MPD spokesperson Kristen Metzger told CNN Monday that Officer Gunther Hashida, an 18-year veteran on the force, was found dead at his residence Thursday.

"We are grieving as a Department and our thoughts and prayers are with Officer Hashida's family and friends," Metzger said.

Hashida was assigned to the Emergency Response Team within the Special Operations Division and was dispatched to the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to the statement. He joined the MPD in 2003.

Only hours later, the MPD confirmed another suicide had taken place in mid-July.

“Agency leaders and officers struggle to address the suicide inside their organizations and often do not know what to say publicly — if they choose to say anything at all,” Wexler said.

There is no body of research or playbook for officer suicide.

Here in D.C., the official response has been flailing after the suicides of Capitol Police officer Howard Liebengood and D.C. police officers Jeffrey Smith, Gunther Hashida and Kyle deFreytag — who were all at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

There were no citywide motorcades or processions for those fallen officers, the departments weren’t forthcoming with statements, and the families are fighting to have the deaths acknowledged as being in the line of duty.

That day — and the national reaction to it — was a toxic concentration of the most fraught aspects of their profession. Police were under attack, understaffed, assaulted by people carrying police-support flags and abandoned by some of the Republican members of Congress they protected that day.

Продолжение статьи
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/death-by-suicide-among-police-is-a-quiet-epidemic-it-needs-to-be-acknowledged/2021/08/09/c7dc2036-f941-11eb-9c0e-97e29906a970_story.html