New Whistleblower Award : For the right to information

taz Panter Foundation | He felt obliged to ‘dispel the lie that drone warfare keeps us safe, that our lives are worth more than theirs’, Daniel E. Hale said in court. The former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst was charged with making the high civilian costs of the US drone programme public in 2014.

Today, Daniel Everette Hale receives the international Ellsberg Whistleblower Award, which is endowed with EUR 10,000.

The award is presented for the first time by the Reva and David Logan Foundation, the taz Panter Foundation, the Wau Holland Foundation and the Whistleblower Network to individuals and organisations around the world whose efforts have contributed to the disclosure of information relevant to the public.

This is ‘strengthening the public’s right to know and thus democracy,’ reads the press release on the presentation of the award. The revelations of whistleblowers give ‘the public the chance to participate in debates and decision-making processes on key issues that often affect society as a whole’.

To this day, many whistleblowers pay a high personal price for showing great courage and informing the public about events that are of general interest, despite all the dangers. Daniel E. Hale was also sentenced to a lengthy prison term. In February 2024, he was finally able to leave prison after 33 months and is currently recovering from the prison conditions.

The Whistleblower Award is named after Daniel and Patricia Ellsberg and was created to honour their legacy. US military expert Daniel Ellsberg published a secret study by the US Department of Defence in 1971, exposing US government lies about the Vietnam War and thus helping to end the war.

It was the personal wish of Daniel Ellsberg, who died in 2023, that Daniel E. Hale should receive the first Ellsberg Whistleblower Award.

Further information on the Ellsberg Whistleblower Award can be found at: https://ellsberg-award.org.