[00:05] Daniel Hale is a bona fide American hero I don't say that lightly most of you know that whistleblower's motivation is irrelevant to be a whistleblower one must only bring to light evidence of waste fraud abuse illegality or threats to the public health or Public Safety but Daniel Hale made his Revelations because it was the right thing to do he felt moral and ethical outrage at what he was seeing in his job as a drone operator and he felt compelled to do something about it hail released documents that came to be
[00:36] known as the Drone papers to the online news Outlet the intercept and he spoke out again later in an award-winning film called national bird he said for example that during one five-month period in 2012 nearly 90 percent of those people killed in drone strikes were not the intended targets but civilian bystanders innocent people killed were classified as enemies killed in action unless proven otherwise we're going to talk about this outrageous case with our guest Ray
[01:07] McGovern Ray is a former senior Cia officer who served for 27 years he was President George H.W Bush's morning intelligence briefer and was the recipient of the cia's intelligence Commendation Medal which he returned in protest Rey is now a noted activist and is the co-founder of Veteran intelligence Professionals for sanity Ray welcome to the show Ray you know Daniel Hale personally so many whistleblowers come to whistleblowing from different points of view give us an overview of his case
[01:38] Daniel Hale was just a guy doing a job how did all that change well he realized that there's a gradation of values to your job and the one that supersedes all the others is the Oaths that we all take uh to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic when he saw what we're doing with these drones in these forever Wars his
[02:08] conscience his conscience prevailed okay and when he saw that over a five-month period this is really as clearly indicated in the in the documents a 200 people were killed with drones ninety percent like nine zero percent were civilians counted as military casualties now if my arithmetic is correct uh 200 kills uh 180 of those civilians
[02:46] now his conscience told him that he needed to stop that whatever he could do he'd stop it he knew and I know this personally he knew the risk he was taking he was going to take it anyway he's the best tradition of whistleblowers I mean his far distant predecessor relative even Nathaniel Hale remember I regret that I only have one life to give for my country wow you don't get any better than that in other words he knew what he
[03:17] was doing when he went into it like Daniel Ellsberg like Edward Snowden they fully expected to have to spend the rest of their life in jail for exposing something that their oath to the Constitution and their conscious dictated that they expose now not all of us are up to that are you or John but I wasn't maybe I could give you a negative example of that by and by
[03:50] during this interview one of the things that has struck me about Daniel Hale is how intelligent he is he's an extraordinarily bright young man his whistleblowing was calculated he knew exactly what he was getting himself into his Revelations were not an accident my point here is that he made a decision to put the stories of Untold victims of the Drone program and the futures of possible drone victims above his own well-being do you see his situation the same way he wasn't the
[04:21] proverbial accidental whistleblower was he no he was very deliberate and you know watching our government for example I remember very very specifically that Dianne Feinstein who is supposed to be uh the what they call the the uh supervisory committee uh the committee that looks at uh CIA and other operations uh she was like sort of the Overlook committee and when she
[04:53] interviewed John Brennan sort of like the Godfather in both senses of the word of this drone program when he was about to become head of Central Intelligence she said Oh Mr Mr I wasn't uh let's see it was it was tender like no no it was Brenda okay look she said Mr Brennan uh it's a wonderful program I'm told that the number of Civilian casualties
[05:25] are are in the single digits and brother smile is yeah a bunch of I mean but butcher Milwaukee all right single digits well I've just told you for one five month period uh ten percent or Twenty eighty percent of the people killed were actually civilians so uh when uh Dan Hale looked at that and saw that you know the the
[05:57] intelligence uh committees were not going to reveal what was going on he decided to do it himself and it's to his great credit that he did that despite risking uh in prison imprisonment where he is now so you don't get too many people like that you Owen John Ellsberg was another and I have to tell you it's Snowden said specifically when he arrived in Hong Kong he said I know the CIA station is right down this Street
[06:28] here and they're gonna I know they're almost certainly going to get me uh but I I'll do it anyway because I swore an oath to the Constitution all right the fourth amendment in the Constitution and that's what I was trying to protect now in the event it was Julian Assange Sarah Harrison and others who got him out of there and it was incredibly Artful way that they got him on that aeroflow plane that's another story but he lived to tell the
[06:58] tale and he's got a small family now two little boys and a wife in Moscow he'd like to be here in this country but he's proud of what he did and we needed to know what he did again Congress did not act as it should have in prohibiting NSA CIA and others from continuing to violate the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States when Daniel Hale decided to make his Revelations he went to the intercept this was actually quite controversial
[07:30] because many National Security whistleblowers who have gone to the intercept have found themselves to be sent to trial and then on to prison NSA whistleblower reality winner for example went to The Intercept they exposed her idea identity FBI whistleblower Terry Albury went to the intercept and they exposed his identity the two national security journalists at The Intercept Richard Esposito and Matthew Cole were the journalists responsible for sending me to prison the same thing that happened to all of us happened to Daniel Hale at The Intercept what is going on
[08:02] there are they that unprofessional or are they somehow connected to the National Security establishment well The Intercept has fallen on bad times when you think how it was set up and what it was out to do what has happened well you know the proof is in the pudding they were unwilling to publish uh green Walls expose of the Biden laptop story before the last election wow they sat on it they uh they
[08:36] wouldn't publish what Robert Greenwald had he had a publish himself and he had to leave The Intercept a institution that he had himself co-founded now from what I know and no one knows everything about everything of these cases that you just mentioned my impression is that Daniel Hale was convinced that he would be found out and that he was willing to pay the price
[09:08] unlike the others uh there is circumstantial evidence that he didn't take the rudimentary precautions that prevent the what the Soviets used to call the organs of State security from finding out who you were so the others I think were really traceable to incompetence or Worse Daniels uh I happen on enough about that
[09:38] to indicate that he was willing to pay the price and he's unwilling to hide for the rest of his life so I'm not saying it's on his own fault but he he knew that going in and he acted in that way so his case in my view was a little bit different Daniel Hale at his sentencing gave one of the most inspirational speeches that I've ever heard in my life in that statement that he made he said and I quote I believe that it is wrong to kill but it is especially wrong to
[10:10] kill the defenseless I shared what was necessary to dispel the lie that drone Warfare keeps us safe that our lives are worth more than theirs unquote he also said that he had to kill a part of his own conscience to do his job he also paraphrased his ancestor Nathan Hale and said I have but this one life to give in the service of my country these are incredibly powerful words Ray at the same time the prosecutor in this case said that Daniel did not provide a public service he endangered soldiers
[10:42] there is of course nothing at all to indicate that this was the case give me your thoughts on Daniel Hale's Legacy what do you think that'll be well that's what prosecutors do of course they're not above twisting the truth I'm reminded of when uh Chelsea Manning uh revealed the secrets on our Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the initial complaint from the prosecutors and from everybody else was that we are endangering Source endangering sources
[11:13] and methods and not only that but people well guess what uh when the head of defense department at the time Philip lanium Robbie gate Robert Gates was asked to substantiate that he came back and told the head of the Senate arms committee arms Services committee Levin was his name he said well you know we've looked into this and there's no evidence that anyone was harmed by virtue of
[11:44] these disclosures so they couldn't substantiate that anyone so much was so much a spat-upon in in reaction to these truths coming out so that's always a that's always a technique that the prosecutors use uh you know when you think about the people that Dan Hale saw being killed or you know Gathering chestnuts or gathering
[12:14] grapes or whatever being killed uh who are these people well the powers that be the John Brennan's of this world consider those people well with the term is used to call unto mentioned okay people that boo below the rest of us mention okay now when he talked about his conscience uh you know my conscience
[12:45] is also formed by what we Catholics call the preferential option for the poor and the British and the British might get and the Vatican made that explicitly clear back in 1975 when they said here's what that means here's what that means a preferential option for the poor no one quote no one is entitled to accumulate still more or what he doesn't need
[13:17] when others lack the rudimentary basics of Life period end quote well the Supreme indignity of course is being deprived of life without due process and that's what was happening to 90 percent of those civilians in Afghanistan Iraq under that Brennan regime do you remember John I think it was uh every Tuesday it was Tuesday or Thursday I think it was Tuesday the John Brennan bought a list to President Obama
[13:49] and that list included the names of people who would be uh who would be obliterated by drones that particular week okay and you know can you see it I mean here's Obama said no John huh this fellow Ali so-and-so uh didn't you tell me that is a a wife of five kids uh yeah Mr President we found out that he was having lunch with a suspect terrorists in Lebanon so I take it you think we get again and get them well John you know
[14:19] let's put him out let's put him at the bottom of the list and and let's look at that again next week let's let's kill the other ten okay Chad oh yes sir Mr President hello give me a break but that's the way it went down and no one no one was held accountable the only way we know all this stuff is for people like Daniel Hale my hat's off to him I want to ask you about people considering becoming whistleblowers especially in the National Security
[14:50] Arena I get calls from people with some frequency asking for advice I'm sure you do too what do you tell people like Daniel Hale who are struggling with a decision to go public it's not a secret that the entire weight of the US government will fall on their heads if they go public with their information well I say if you're in Hawaii Fly East what do I mean by that I mean Edward Snowden had done his homework he knew that he went
[15:21] it went to the U.S or any points West East for him whatever it was to the U.S he couldn't escape being found out and in prison so he went to Hong Kong that's why he went to Hong Kong to release this stuff to give it to journalists and have a couple days before they found him he fully expected to be found as I said before so he was able to do this why because he was smart enough doubts outsmart the system so I'd say to a
[15:52] whistleblower look at first you need to you need to decide if you're willing to to risk what might be in in store for you and if you are well my I give you my my unadulterated uh encouragement now uh before you go and do this thing figure out how best to do it and how most securely to do it there are all kinds of ways these days okay not only Wikileaks but others so figure that out and go ahead do it and don't be left with the
[16:24] kind of conscience that I have when Daniel Hale was sentenced in the notorious district court for the eastern district of Virginia judge Liam O'Grady shocked Everybody by giving him a sentence of 45 months in prison but judge O'Grady recommended that Daniel go to a low security prison where he could be treated for depression and addiction issues the U.S Bureau of Prisons ignored that recommendation and instead sent him to the communications management unit of the super max prison at Marion Illinois
[16:55] this is one of the two most secure and most dreaded prisons in the entire U.S prison system Daniel is now incarcerated with some of the most dangerous people in the world including terrorists and Mafia leaders what's the message that we should all take from this it was the same message that we're giving we're trying to give with respect to Julian Assange we're gonna get you and we get you gonna treat you brutally we're going to get you we're going to put you in prison so don't do don't do what you might be
[17:27] tempted to do what your conscience tells you you should do okay it's it's that brutal and those people are running running and not that the judges for God's sake the prison people the what we call the Deep State all those three letter agencies that have purview over our government to include over our president I have to tell you uh look at what's happening in Ukraine so you know it's it's really a a a tough situation
[19:33] say I'm thinking John well you went away to prison there was a mammoth ball a big celebration on the top of one of the fanciest hotels in Washington and we all said goodbye John we'll see you later and when you came back we welcomed you so you know a lot of people a lot of people still admire a courage and a feeling of Integrity there'll be those people to to welcome Daniel Hale as he gets out of these ridiculous situations in prison
[20:03] veteran intelligence Professionals for sanity the group that you co-founded that's made up of retired officials from the CIA FBI NSA the military and the British MI5 and MI6 recently gave Daniel Hale its Sam Adams award for integrity and intelligence tell us about the award and about why it was so important to honor Daniel well there's no better prize for someone he has a really good predecessors in having that award Colleen Rally from the FBI was the first
[20:34] one 20 years ago okay 2002 we all know what was happening then she warned about it at other recipients have been uh Julian Assange um okay Manning uh many really courageous folks so so Daniel is in this Heritage line of uh 20 people he being the 20th have stood up to the government and said look
[21:05] our primary osis the Constitution you are violating it so we're gonna we're gonna expose what goes on here um now Sam Adams already told you uh was a person who was extremely bright and had the right answers uh what happened to him well he was shuns he was shunned by the agency leadership uh Sam had a lot of guts he went to the IG the
[21:35] Inspector General and said I want I want to uh do a complaint on Richard Helms who happens to be the head of the CIA because he's lying about Vietnam because you can figure out how far he got with that but finally uh he got his story out and guess what Westmoreland the general sued him sued him and CBS that did a 90-minute 60-minute segment on the falsification of evidence on Vietnam and
[22:06] guess what guess who won uh voice Mullen had a withdraw from the suit because people coming out of the woodwork saying yeah Sam had the guts to say it right we were repressed by a spoiling we were in the Army we couldn't we couldn't resist we needed to get promoted Sam did the right thing so the whole thing uh you know redounded to Sam's benefit unfortunately Sam died early in 50 at 53 years old from an unexpected heart
[22:37] attack I suspect that the whole thing was wearing on him and he was unable to enjoy uh basking in the in the glory of what he actually did that's not going to happen everybody so don't let that beard return