Former CIA/NSA Boss Michael Hayden Admits Ed Snowden Was A Whistleblower

from the freudian-slip? dept

Mon, Jul 28th 2014 9:02am — Mike Masnick

Ever since Snowden first leaked the documents he took from the NSA, there's been a (somewhat ridiculous) debate over whether or not he was a "whistleblower" or "a traitor" (or potentially somewhere in between). However, it seems like many fall into one of those somewhat polar opposite positions. To many of us, it's been quite clear that he's a whistleblower. However, to folks like former NSA and CIA boss Michael Hayden, the view has been somewhat different. After all, Hayden has directly called Snowden a traitor, claimed that he was worse than a variety of spies (including the Rosenbergs, Klaus Fuchs, Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen), and publicly fantasized about killing Snowden.

So it seems at least somewhat noteworthy that, in a moment of what appears to be accidental honesty, Hayden admitted that Snowden was really a whistleblower (spotted by Snowden legal advisor Jesselyn Radack). The video above should start at about 21 minutes and 50 seconds. It's of a panel at the Aspen Security conference, and Hayden clearly states:

"When Snowden blew the whistle on the 215 program... that's the metadata stuff, the phone bills up at Ft. Meade...."

Of course, he goes on to insist that the program was clearly perfectly legal based on all of the supposed "oversight." He conveniently leaves out the fact that many of the details of the program were not actually known by those who did the approving. For example, he leaves out that the FISA Court's approvals did not involve a full judicial analysis of the program until after the Snowden revelations (7 years after the program started), and that the original approval was based on a twisted interpretation of an approval of a very different program. He leaves out that the approval in Congress was done with most of Congress not being told how broad the program was and that it captured phone records on just about every phone call. He leaves out that the evidence of abuse of the program or the lack of a working audit system to prevent abuse weren't widely known.

But, still, he does appear to be admitting that Snowden was, in fact, a whistleblower. Even if it's something of a Freudian slip, it's still telling. Furthermore, at the end of his statement, he does further admit that even those approvals across the branches of government is viewed by many in the public as "consent of the governors, not consent of the governed" and seems to at least acknowledge that this is a legitimate concern. I doubt we'll see Hayden coming around to the views of many of us concerning the gross abuses by the intelligence community (many of which happened under his watch), but these do seems like baby steps in the right direction.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: cia, ed snowden, michael hayden, nsa, section 215, whistleblower

18 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Michael, 28 Jul 2014 @ 9:07am

"When Snowden blew the whistle on the 215 program... that's the metadata stuff, the phone bills up at Ft. Meade...."

Since Hayden said it, we know it's not true.

Crap.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
AricTheRed (profile), 28 Jul 2014 @ 9:07am

What's he gonna do now?
Looks like Hayden is going to have to move to Russia and be Eds' roomie, that or when he is charged by the Obama administrations DOJ with giving material support to a known traitor, plead temporary SANITY.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
justok (profile), 28 Jul 2014 @ 9:10am

For all their expertise, NSA can't tap a simple whistle?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
David, 28 Jul 2014 @ 9:12am

So what?
That's Michael Hayden we are talking about, the one who has no problems believing as many as six conflicting things before breakfast.

He will readily believe that Edward Snowden is a traitor, a whistleblower, a vampire, a toadstool and a quarterhorse at the same time without blinking if you tell him national security and the Spanish Inquisition depend on it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael Hayden, 28 Jul 2014 @ 9:15am

Re: So what?
You meant toad stool, and I only suspect the vampire thing, but it makes a lot of sense.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
AJ, 28 Jul 2014 @ 9:22am

Flag Down!
By definition, doesn't "blowing the whistle" indicate a foul? As in someone did something wrong? So if he's admitting they are "doing something wrong" and that Snowden "Blew the whistle" why the hell don't they stop doing it? Seems to me they are blatantly telling us that they know what they are doing is wrong, but they don't care. Their hubris is insulting, and will eventually be their downfall.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
scotts13 (profile), 28 Jul 2014 @ 9:39am

Just a turn of the phrase
I suspect one can use the vernacular "blow the whistle" to refer to someone's actions without conferring the apparently now-critical official appellation "Whistle Blower."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael, 28 Jul 2014 @ 9:46am

Re: Just a turn of the phrase
Sure you can say that someone who "blew the whistle" is not a "whistleblower". Also, someone who "sucked a c***" is not necessarily a "c***sucker", someone who "ate a bowl of d***s" is not a "d***eater".

However, when you do say something like this, you are clearly full of s***.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2014 @ 10:03am

Re: Flag Down!
"By definition, doesn't "blowing the whistle" indicate a foul?"

In even more generic terms, a whistle is used to call attention to or indicate something. It doesn't necessarily need to be something wrong, however that is the typical use.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Androgynous Cowherd, 28 Jul 2014 @ 10:19am

URL error
The video embed has a question mark escaped one extra time in its URL, which makes it not work. "//www.youtube.com/embed/rgHjMed1ZL8start=1311" should be "//www.youtube.com/embed/rgHjMed1ZL8?start=1311" in the page source for this article.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
beltorak (profile), 28 Jul 2014 @ 10:21am

well, well, well....

looks like ol' mike's guilty conscience is getting the best of him. first he gives us "we kill people based on metadata", and now "when Snowden blew the whistle"... yeah, likely those are freudian slips, but those are the things we should pay most attention to, before the rationalizing criminal mind has a chance to wave it all away in a puff of sophistry....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2014 @ 10:51am

To the Government, whistleblower is to traitor as infringement is to theft.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 28 Jul 2014 @ 11:14am

start your statement with a bit of truth...
and end it in an untruth.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Eli the Bearded, 28 Jul 2014 @ 4:17pm

Re: Re: Just a turn of the phrase
Maybe "cocksucker" was not the best example to use. Based on a recommendation from lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower (author of The F Word), I read this just a week ago:

http://adult-mag.com/cocksucker-chelsea-summers/
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Whatever (profile), 28 Jul 2014 @ 11:55pm

Re:
This is a great example of taking something said in one way, and trying to stretch it to mean something else.

"blowing the whistle" is just a phrase. He could have said "wave a red flag". Would that have made him a bullfighter?

It shows that with careful, thoughtful, and perhaps intentional misunderstanding, you can build almost any truth you like. Just ask Alex Jones or Fox "news".
[ link to this | view in thread ]
John Fenderson (profile), 29 Jul 2014 @ 9:53am

Re: Flag Down!
I'm a sucker for learning the origins of common phrases. This is a moderately interesting one, and the meaning of it is somewhat unclear.

The first recorded usage of "blowing the whistle" to mean denouncing illegal or wasteful practices by public servants comes from P.G. Wodehouse in his 1934's "Right Ho, Jeeves":

Now that the whistle had been blown on his speech, it seemed to me that there was no longer any need for the strategic retreat which I had been planning.

Raymond Chandler also used it in 1954's "The Long Goodbye".

It is unclear if the term refers to the blowing of a referee's whistle or the blowing of a policeman's whistle.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
athe, 30 Jul 2014 @ 12:07am

Re: Re:
It shows that with careful, thoughtful, and perhaps intentional misunderstanding, you can build almost any truth you like.

Why not - it's what the NSA (and its ilk) do...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Donglebert The Needlessly Unready, 30 Jul 2014 @ 3:42am

Re: Re:
The only stretching that's obvious here is that people are trying to interpret that someone "blowing the whistle" is not a "whistleblower". That's purely and simply rubbish.

What you believe "blowing the whistle" to signify in itself is irrelevant. That a whistle was blown by a whistleblower is fact. Therefore Snowdown is here being called a whistleblower.

And no, "blowing the whistle" doesn't inherently indicate foul. What it does indicate is STOP.

In the same way, the idiom "waving a red flag" has nothing to do with bullfighting. It's got everything to do with semaphore, where a red flag means STOP.
[ link to this | view in thread ]