O'Grady responded, “You’re not facing prison for speaking out about the drone program injuring and killing innocent persons," and, "You could have been a whistleblower and garnered all this attention without leaking any of these documents, frankly.”
However, if Hale had spoken to the public about the content of the documents but never taken any of the information, he almost certainly would have still been the target of an Espionage Act prosecution.
Not sure if the writer is naive or obtuse; it's pretty obvious that the judge meant using institutional whistleblowing channels, which would have legally insulated Hale. Of course, it's also that much more likely that the matter would have gone unnoticed by the public and and eventually been buried in red tape.