 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Over a five-month period in 2012, US aerial strikes killed 155 people in Afghanistan. Of these, only 19 were intended targets. 136 were bystanders. They were labeled as enemies killed in action just because they were near the target. This means 90% of the victims of those drone strikes were not the intended targets. They were likely civilians. This information became public when Daniel Hale released 17 intelligence documents. 11 of those were marked secret and top secret. The documents also revealed that over 40% of the people labelled terror suspects by the US government had no clear affiliations with terror groups and that the US government targeted US citizens as well in Afghanistan and other countries. Daniel Hale is a US Air Force veteran and former intelligence analyst. During his military service, he participated in the US drone program at Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base. In 2019, he was arrested and charged with the Espionage Act and theft of government property. In March this year, Hale pleaded guilty to one count of the Espionage Act, admitting that he leaked confidential documents in 2015. He has now been sentenced to 45 months in prison by a federal judge. At his sentencing, Hale said, I'm here because I stole something that was never mine to take, precious human life. I couldn't keep living in a world in which people pretended that things weren't happening, that war. Please your honor forgive me for taking papers instead of human lives. Hale is the first prominent whistleblower to be handed a jail sentence under the Espionage Act since President Joe Biden took office. Documents released by Hale have brought to light the crimes committed by the US through its drone warfare. Then President Barack Obama had stated in 2014 that there had to be near certainty of no civilian casualties for a drone strike to be carried out. Hale, who provided intelligence for some of these strikes during his service, saw the operations to be quite different. Ahead of his sentencing, Hale's lawyers submitted an 11-page letter written by him in jail to the judge. Hale wrote, Not a day goes by that I don't question the justification for my actions. He said that the strikes may have been permissible by the rules of engagement, but he did not believe that they were in any way necessary for the protection of the United States of America. He also argued that the war in Afghanistan had very little to do with preventing terror from coming into the US and a lot more to do with protecting the profits of weapons manufacturers and so-called defense contractors. Hale was indicted in 2019 around the same time as Julian Assange. He is among the eight people who have been criminally prosecuted for leaking documents to the media under Donald Trump's administration. He was the fifth to be charged with the Esplanade Act. His indictment and conviction have been sharply criticized by activists, anti-war groups and rights organizations. Court Pink organized a demonstration outside the courthouse where the sentencing took place. They stated, Hale had exposed the US government's criminal drone murder of innocent children and received a 45-month prison sentence. Edward Snowden called Hale one of the great American whistleblowers. The American Civil Liberties Union said, leaks to press in the public interests should not be prosecuted under the Esplanade Act. Daniel Hale helped the public learn about a lethal program that should never have been kept secret. He should be thanked, not sentenced as a spy.