Hayden Says They Did Surveillance In A 'Madisonian' Way

from the floundering-father? dept

By now you probably know the name Michael Hayden. Former NSA and CIA Director Hayden now seems to focus all his time on pimping the security state to the American public. He steadfastly claims that all negative impact and lawlessness on the part of the spy agencies is fiction, and that state secrets and your privacy are ironically equal. He also enjoys the occasional wistful guffaw at the notion of assassinating Edward Snowden. When it comes to dealing honestly about the spying state of our nation, he's the kind of man you could fit into briefcase if you gave him an enema.

But, look, he's a professional spy, which means he's a professional liar about spying. That's what they do. But on Meet The Press this Sunday, he decided to expand the lying to envelope some of the much-smarter founding fathers that I happen to love. Here's a clip of his interview:

In case you can't watch the clip, here are some highlights with some minor, ahem, commentary after them.

"I didn't see the excesses. I saw the potential for problems. There is no abuse. Oh, and by the way, I don't see any unlawfulness either."

In other words, true to Hayden's form, the blatant abuse by the NSA of spying on Americans that was uncovered, and to which the NSA themselves admitted at least minor problems, never happened. It must be very nice to live in a world where you get to pretend to be a Monty Python Black Knight. We've abused you! No you haven't, it's just flesh wound. Brilliant.

"This was all done according to the Madisonian formula. President authorized, the legislature legislated and the courts oversaw."

If you have studied even the barest basics of the American government in history, you'll recognize the "Madisonian Model" as the separation of powers. However, Hayden is oversimplifying things here to the absolute extreme. The entire concept behind James Madison's model was about restraining the Presidential office to nominating judges, signing bills, negotiating treaties and commanding the nation's troops. It takes some serious logical gymnastics to claim that the massive spying done by the alphabet agencies at the behest of the past two presidents would fit within Madison's vision.

Still, I don't mind seeing Hayden come on programs like this and spout this kind of nonsense, either about the abuses of the NSA in general or his lack of historical knowledge more specifically. That's because he comes off purely as a smarmy, lying, self-serving blowhard without an ounce of credibility. Nothing will bury the NSA spying program more quickly than its proponents, if they keep this up.

Filed Under: james madison, michael hayden, nsa, separation of powers, surveillance

Michael Hayden Admits That He Can't Prove Stories Revealing NSA Snooping Have Harmed National Security

from the oh-now-he-tells-us dept

With all of the focus on the Snowden revelations from the past few months, it's put new attention on the big story from 2005, in which the NY Times revealed President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, run by then NSA boss Michael Hayden. The NYT story, famously, was held for thirteen months as the government tried to do everything to block it from being published -- especially during the 2004 election season. The claims were always the same: publishing the story would be a massive threat to national security -- just like you hear today with the Snowden revelations. The NY Times public editor, Margaret Sullivan, decided to revisit that decision to delay the publication for over a year with various parties involved in the decision, and see how they feel about it now. There are a few interesting tidbits, but the one that struck me most is actually buried in a parenthetical. It's Michael Hayden admitting that, despite all his whining about the harm of revealing this stuff, there's no evidence it actually did any harm:

And even Mr. Hayden told me that he can’t prove any harm to national security from the publication of the eavesdropping stories -- then or now.

The "then or now" seems rather important. First of all, with the older story, nearly a decade forward and no proof of harm? That seems rather revealing, since they insisted so strongly that publication would be horrific and would ruin their chances to spy on people (sound familiar?) Furthermore, he's now admitting that he can't prove harm from the recent stories either -- even though he seems to have no trouble going around fear mongering, claiming such damage has been done, at every other opportunity.

The article claims that the NY Times learned its lesson from this, and that it's much less inclined to take the government's word on claims that publishing a story will cause national security harm anymore.

“I think our story broke the fever,” Mr. Risen said. “We’re much better now” about pushing back against government pressure. Jill Abramson, the executive editor (then managing editor), has not only defended the Snowden-related stories as squarely in the public interest but has had Times reporters and editors collaborating with The Guardian and ProPublica on Snowden-sourced stories.

Hopefully, that remains true. It's easy for the government to fear monger over these things, but every time they do, it's difficult to think of a single example where the claims of harm on our national security have ever been accurate.

Filed Under: harm, michael hayden, national security, nsa, nsa surveillance

Michael Hayden Claims State Secrecy Is Just Like Personal Privacy

from the unclear-on-the-concept dept

Former NSA and CIA boss Michael Hayden has a way of not just being wrong and misleading about the intelligence community whenever he opens his mouth, but he's frequently obnoxious about it. That was very much on display last night when Hayden got to debate reporter Barton Gellman at Duke. Gellman, of course, is one of the three early reporters (along with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras) who had direct access to Ed Snowden and got initial documents directly from him. As you watch the debate, you see that Gellman was calm and assured, even as Hayden made a bunch of highly questionable to downright misleading and insulting claims -- and when Gellman tried to highlight some of the misleading claims, Hayden got increasingly angry and defensive, even shouting down Gellman at one point.

But there were a few whoppers from Hayden, including this claim:

There are necessary secrets. Our society recognizes privacy or secrecy for a variety of institutions. We do priest/penitent. We do lawyer/client. We do husband/wife. I mean, we recognize that for the greater good, somethings need to be kept out of the public domain. Those are more in the sense of personal privacy. But privacy to an individual is what secrecy is to a state. Both are necessary and both can be abused. Fully aware, alright, that both can be abused.

Talk about your false equivalencies. Privacy for individuals, concerning private actions, is a basic right. Secrecy for governments is not. The two things are not similar in any way other than that they involve content not known by the public. Other than that, the two concepts are quite different. Privacy is something that can be infringed upon. Secrecy, not so.

Even worse, while Hayden is right that both privacy and secrecy can be "abused," the abuses are wholly different situations. When privacy is "abused," it often means violating someone's privacy (i.e., the things Michael Hayden did when he ran the warrantless wiretapping program under George W. Bush). When secrecy is abused, it means that the government is keeping things secret that should be public (i.e., like when Michael Hayden kept it secret that he was tapping phone calls without a warrant). In short, yes, both can be abused, but it seems that it's always the government doing the abusing.

Elsewhere, Hayden made a number of other ridiculous claims, including repeatedly slamming Ed Snowden, falsely claiming that he only went to work for the NSA because of a "preconceived notion" that he wanted to expose (which goes against what every profile of Snowden has said), and not because he "discovered something which offended him." Again, that's not supported by the record, but if Hayden wants to tar and feather Snowden, I guess you'd expect that. But then he pretends that Snowden didn't reveal anything that did or should concern anyone at all.

The agencies weren't doing anything illegal. They weren't doing anything unconstitutional. They were just doing things that offended him [Snowden].

Well, that, and somewhere around half of Congress, a very large percentage of the American public and an even larger percentage of the rest of the world. Also, given how many people in Congress have now argued that what the NSA was doing was out of bounds with the law -- and multiple people inside the US government and elsewhere around the globe have pointed out how important these revelations have been -- it would appear that claiming that these were things that merely offended Snowden is, again, not actually supported by any evidence other than the warped mind of Michael Hayden.

Later in the talk, he argued that Gellman's revealing PRISM was "the most destructive" revelation that's been made so far, because, Hayden claims, terrorists all used to love using Yahoo and Google, and now they don't.

Many legitimate intelligence targets -- we learned two days ago that Yahoo and Google are [shakes head] WERE the internet providers of choice for terrorists world wide.

This is difficult to believe. In fact, it's impossible to believe. First off, it's been widely reported that any serious terrorist group has long known not to use things like American company email systems, because they're being monitored. Second, if the revelations here made it more difficult for terrorists to communicate, isn't that a good thing? Don't we want to disrupt their communications and make it harder for them to plot?

Hayden tried hard (very hard) to make the case that we lived in this wonderful world in which "bad guys" (which he implies are easy to distinguish from everyone else) used American communications systems, so we had this NSA nirvana in that it was super easy to spy on them... until now. He even angrily shouts at Gellman at one point (about 55:50 in the video):

Hayden: This was the most productive source of communications intelligence that NSA had. Your privacy was not involved -- other than the fact that you use Google or Yahoo. But your emails, your accounts, were not the ones being accessed. It was...

Gellman: No, they weren't the ones being targeted.

Hayden: No no. I chose my word... NO!!! I chose my words carefully. YOUR ACCOUNTS were not being accessed. We'll get to this in a minute. This was foreign intelligence. It was a wondrous source of foreign intelligence, made possible by the accident of history and technology, that put most of the world's web traffic inside the United States. [Waves hands at Gellman] Why in God's name would you want to make that public? Why in the world would you want to tell all of these people that we're targeting that 'if you use an American email service, the NSA has the ability -- without working really hard to collect packets on the move out there on the world wide web -- to go and access this information.' That's a body blow for those people who are trying to protect you.

That is... misleading at best. Again, most "foreign targets" that matter already knew better than to use those services. But, more importantly, all of that presupposes that the NSA is good at just spying on "the bad guys" and avoiding the rest of us "good guys." But there's little evidence to support that claim. As Gellman points out in response, the NSA collects tens of millions of content from Americans which it can then search through -- even if we're not "bad guys." Second, it assumes that everyone should be happy that the NSA can spy on just about anyone without too much trouble. Many of us believe that the job of the world is not to make life easier on the NSA at all. Third, it assumes that this is not an issue for public debate -- something that a majority of the public has rejected. Basically, it's the viewpoint of an insider's insider.

There was a lot more in the talk, including an audience Q&A. The audience questions were definitely more critical for Hayden. The first question laid out Hayden's own activities in the wake of 9/11, including the warrantless wiretapping, and asked Hayden directly why he hasn't been prosecuted yet. Hayden claims that he did everything "within his current authorities" and told President Bush things that he could do if given authority, and said that his lawyers at NSA agreed that the President could give him that authority -- and that the FISA court had agreed that the President had such authorities. And he calls the revelation of the warrantless wiretapping "a mighty kerfuffle." And then claims that the FISA Amendments Act further legitimized his own warrantless wiretapping -- which is a... unique interpretation of the law. Gellman, in response, adds back in many of the parts that Hayden skipped over, including the DOJ pointing out that the program was unlawful, and Hayden deciding to move forward with the program anyway.

At the end, a woman asks Hayden how he can justify spying on our "greatest allies" such as Germany. Hayden is somewhat dismissive of this question, pointing out, more or less, that he's not concerned about spying on foreigners, because they're foreigners and that's what he's supposed to do. Now, he's technically correct under the law. And then he tries to explain why it's okay to spy on Angela Merkel by using an example of her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, and the well-known controversy over his helping Gazprom secure a pipeline deal in his final days of office, and then accepting a job with Gazprom soon after. Hayden suggests he's clearly offended by a public official taking a high paying job with a company helped by his connections soon after leaving office:

I think a legitimate question is whether that's really legitimate statecraft, or something different? And I think American policy makers might want to know. And therefore we collect intelligence against that for that intelligence need.

Of course, that suggests that as long as there's anything that policy makers might want to know about, then it's okay to spy on anyone. That seems questionable. Also, given that Hayden himself, upon leaving office, took a lucrative job with the Chertoff Group, a company that clearly benefits from his and others' ties to government, is that really the best example that Hayden wants to roll out there?

Filed Under: bartgellman, michael hayden, nsa, privacy, secrecy, surveillance

Ex-DHS Director Michael Chertoff: The Public Spying On Famous People With Their Smartphones Is A Bigger Issue Than NSA Spying

from the wanna-run-that-by-me-again? dept

Former director of Homeland Security (and current profiteer off of any "security" scare) Michael Chertoff has penned quite an incredible op-ed for the Washington Post, in which he argues that the real threat to privacy today is not the NSA spying on everyone, but rather all you people out there in the public with your smartphones, taking photos and videos, and going to Twitter to post things you overheard more important people say. Seriously. It starts out by claiming this is a "less-debated threat":

So it is striking that two recent news stories illustrate a less-debated threat to privacy that we as a society are inflicting on ourselves. Last week, a passenger on an Acela train decided to tweet in real time his summary of an overheard phone conversation by Gen. Michael Hayden, a former director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA (and my current business partner). The same day, a photo was published of Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler at a summer party where he was surrounded by underage youths who apparently were drinking.

But he then goes on to argue that this kind of thing is more troubling than the NSA revelations, which Chertoff suggests is no big deal:

Of course, the delicious irony is obvious: In one case, the former NSA chief becomes a victim of eavesdropping. In the other, a politician critical of teen drinking fails to intervene when he is surrounded by it. But both stories carry a more troubling implication. The ubiquitousness of recording devices ­— coupled with the ability everyone has to broadcast indiscriminately through Twitter, YouTube and other online platforms — means that virtually every act or utterance outside one’s own home (or, in Gansler’s case, inside a private home) is subject to being massively publicized. And because these outlets bypass any editorial review, there is no assurance that what is disseminated has context or news value.

It would appear that Chertoff seems to believe that there should be no expectation of privacy for the things you actually do in private -- generating metadata about who you call, where you go, what websites you visit, etc. But, stuff that you actually do in public should never be "broadcast" because it might embarrass famous people.

And, yes, it's the famous people being embarrassed that seems to most concern Chertoff:

If a well-known person has an argument with a spouse or child at a restaurant, should it be broadcast? If a business personality expresses a political opinion at a private party, should that opinion (or a distortion of it) be passed on to the rest of the world? If a politician buys a book or a magazine at an airport, should a passerby inform everyone?

See? Think of those poor well-known people, having people telling others about what they do. What a shame! Incredibly, he argues that it's this exposing of the public actions of famous people that creates real chilling effects -- and not the NSA's spying, which he calls "exaggerated."

Are we creating an informant society, in which every overheard conversation, cellphone photograph or other record of personal behavior is transmitted not to police but to the world at large? Do we want to chill behavior and speech with the fear that an unpopular comment or embarrassing slip will call forth vituperative criticism and perhaps even adversely affect careers or reputations? Do we need to constantly monitor what we say or do in restaurants, at sporting events, on public sidewalks or even private parties?

I don't know what clueless PR flack thought this was a good strategy, but the clear connotation is hard to miss: Look, we the powerful people get to spy on everyone, but the second you turn the tables and spy on us and the things we do in public, what a horrible shame! Something must be done!

Filed Under: famous people, michael chertoff, michael hayden, nsa, nsa spying, smartphones, surveillance, the public

Tables Turned On Former NSA Boss Michael Hayden, As 'Off-The-Record' Call Is Live Tweeted By Train Passenger

from the no-expectation-of-privacy-on-a-train dept

Michael Hayden, former NSA and CIA boss, who famously argued that the only people complaining about NSA surveillance were internet shut-ins who couldn't get laid, apparently never learned that when you're in a public place, someone might overhear your phone calls. Entrepreneur and former MoveOn.org director Tom Matzzie just so happened to be on the Acela express train from DC to NY when he (1) spotted Hayden sitting behind him and (2) started overhearing a series of "off the record" phone calls with press about the story of the week: the revelations of the NSA spying on foreign leaders. Matzzie did what any self-respecting American would do: live-tweet the calls. During the calls Hayden apparently slammed the Obama administration, while insisting he only be quoted as a "former senior administration official."

I'm sure Hayden will be happy about this. After all, as I'm sure he'd be the first to argue, he had no expectation of privacy in such a situation, right? In the end, it appears someone in his office spotted the tweets, and alerted Hayden who ended up taking a photo with Matzzie and having a short conversation with him.

A bunch of the tweets are below:

Former NSA spy boss Michael Hayden on Acela behind me blabbing "on background as a former senior admin official" Sounds defensive.

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Hayden talking about a famous blackberry now.

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Hayden was bragging about rendition and black sites a minute ago.

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Michael Hayden on Acela giving reporters disparaging quotes about admin. "Remember, just refer as former senior admin" #exNSAneedsadayjob

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

On Acela: Michael Hayden was talking to Massimo Calabresi at TIME I am pretty sure. Does he tweet?

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

On Acela listening to former NSA spy boss Michael Hayden give "off record" interviews. I feel like I'm in the NSA. Except I'm in public.

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

On Acela: phone ringing. I think the jig is up. Maybe somebody is telling him I'm here. Do I hide?

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

New call. I am totally busted I think.

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

I think I'm safe. Just passed Philly. No rendition yet. Do I have the balls to ask him for a photo? #haydenacela

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

On Acela: Hayden's comments to press were clearly about NSA spying on foreign allies. #haydenacela

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Win pic.twitter.com/tsJHqjv1LM

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

I just had a very nice conversation with Michael Hayden. He was a gentleman and we disagree.

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

On the pic. His office called him and then he graciously offered me an interview. We talked around the 4th amendment and foreign spying.

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

I have to say. I'm actually a little afraid. The intelligence world is kind of dark and scary.

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Hayden just left train in Newark. He touched my back...again. I think a stop short actually.

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Getting off train soon. Somebody email my wife and explain all this.

— Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

For all the talk from the NSA folks how revealing how we collect phone information will lead terrorists to use other means... the fact that an ex-NSA boss would give such calls in a public place like this makes it pretty clear that even if you know if others eavesdrop on you, and you're supposedly an "expert" on this stuff, sometimes people just take a chance anyway. And sometimes it doesn't work so well.

Of course, Hayden's response to all of this is to blame "liberal activists" for this "bullshit" story, while insisting that Matzzie's statements about what the calls were about were "terribly wrong." As if anyone's going to believe that.

Filed Under: acela, eavesdropping, michael hayden, nsa, nsa surveillance, off the record, tom matzzie

James Clapper Thinks That NSA Employees Will Sell Out Our Nation After A Few Days Without A Paycheck

from the the-NSA-is-everything-you-need-it-to-be...-and-less dept

With the government shutdown entering its second week, there's been a lot of discussion (and disagreement -- mostly disagreement) as to what constitutes an "essential" service. To many in the intelligence field, that question has already been answered -- anything related to "national security" remains essential.

According to James Clapper, nearly 70% of the intelligence workforce has been furloughed. The recently-passed Pay Our Military Act should put most of those civilian contractors back to work, but early last week, Clapper was very, very concerned about the damaging effects a layoff could have.

"I've been in the intelligence business for about 50 years. I've never seen anything like this," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, referring to the government shutdown, told lawmakers Wednesday. "This seriously damages our ability to protect the safety and security of this nation and its citizens. … The damage will be insidious."

Fifty years, and yet he missed the 21-day shutdown in 1995/96. This mental lapse notwithstanding, we're talking about a statement made by Clapper all of two days into the shutdown, a count that had been exceeded five times by federal shutdowns since 1981.

Moving on, Clapper expounded on how exactly a shutdown would harm national security. It's not so much that the massive servers might be powered down temporarily or that it might not be able to write checks to telcos and tech companies for backdoor rentals. No, the real problem is that a single missed paycheck is all that stands between any NSA contractor and complete subversion by foreign agencies.

Then Clapper made this dire warning: "This is a dreamland for foreign intelligence services to recruit, particularly as employees -- already many of whom are subject to furloughs driven by sequestration -- are going to have … even greater financial challenges."

According to Clapper, our national security is reliant on uninterrupted payments to a mercenary group of extortionate contractors. A few missed paychecks is a risk this country simply can't take, not if we're going to stay ahead of the terrorists.

This sort of statement from Clapper has to do wonders for troop morale. "Hey, guys! The boss says we're all just opportunistic jerks with no loyalty and the willingness to sell out an entire nation if Uncle Sam doesn't keep topping off the bank account."

This paints a very different picture of the average intelligence analyst than the comparatively glowing portrait former NSA director Michael Hayden whipped up for a CNN interviewer while dodging the "ability" question.

"What I'm saying is don't just trust the NSA. We have a workforce there that has the same values the rest of the American population has."

According to Clapper, the American population values a continued paycheck more than it values loyalty and would gladly sell out its employer (and nation) rather than consider other options like short-term unemployment, job hunting or cutting expenses. If that's how Clapper views the civilians the NSA employees, the biggest surprise is that, so far, only Snowden has skipped town with a few hard drives' worth of documents.

Hayden, on the other hand, seems to feel NSA analysts are just Americans with bigger, faster computers and a frighteningly in-depth search engine. They're people just like us, who would never, ever consider exceeding their "authorization," no matter what amazing "abilities" the system provides.

But these are both just the same argument, which is: "Don't touch the NSA." The NSA's analysts aren't either of the reductionist extremes deployed above, but that's hardly conducive to fending off attacks on their beloved agency. The rhetorical analysts are simply there to be repurposed as needed.

Filed Under: government shutdown, james clapper, loyalty, michael hayden, nsa, nsa surveillance

Former NSA Director Jokes About Putting Snowden On A 'Kill List,' Says He 'Hopes' NSA Is Involved In Targeted Killings

from the Elmer-FUD-declares-it-'HUMAN-SEASON' dept

Former NSA director Michael Hayden may be a sociopath. Actually, his behavior (and the NSA in general) is slightly more aligned with Antisocial Personality Disorder, defined as such:

Antisocial personality disorder is a mental health condition in which a person has a long-term pattern of manipulating, exploiting, or violating the rights of others. This behavior is often criminal.

So far, compliant courts, lax and compliant oversight and secret interpretations of the law have made sure Hayden's actions never strayed into "criminal" territory during his tenure at the NSA. Now that he's no longer in charge (but still relevant!), his mouth is running overtime.

In a panel discussion about cybersecurity hosted by the Washington Post, Hayden attempted to make a lighthearted joke about killing someone.

Hayden noted that Snowden has been nominated for a European human rights award.

"I must admit, in my darker moment over the past several months, I'd also thought of nominating Mr. Snowden, but it was for a different list"

This list would be the one where the government decides you need to die. Just a little dark humor, certainly not completely inappropriate, given Hayden's limited powers as the former head of the NSA. Of course, the head of the House Intelligence Committee couldn't help but chime in and make it totally inappropriate.

The audience laughed, and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who was also on the panel, responded, "I can help you with that."

Hilarity ensued, as they say. Yes, Mike Rogers, the man who has transformed himself into Chief Flack and Shill for the NSA during his tenure as the head of House Intelligence Committee, had to try and top it, and now comes out looking even more venal and misanthropic than usual.

Hayden followed up this "punchline" to offer even more approval of government-ordained killing.

Michael Hayden, a former director of the National Security Agency, defended the government's use of targeted killings on Thursday.

"Yes, we do targeted killings, and I certainly hope they make full use of the capacities of the National Security Agency when we do that..."

Hayden made the comment in response to a question from the audience about an investigation by journalists Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill into the NSA's alleged role in assassinations.

Fantastic. Hayden pointed out that the US government doesn't do assassinations (let's see what Greenwald's investigation turns up, shall we?), but is perfectly entitled to do "targeted killings" because the nation is "at war." Interesting justification, seeing as the nation has been "at war" with both drugs and terrorism for years now, which means that targeted killings have been and will continue to be "fully justified" for as long as those "battles" rage. These "wars" have already been used to excuse all sorts of behavior US citizens object to, like mass domestic surveillance and inland "border" checkpoints.

As for "targeted," the bodies of dozens of civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan would beg to differ. Except they can't.

So, while the leaks keep leaking on and documents keep being pried from the grasp of government agencies by non-governmental agencies actually interested in protecting Americans' rights, the justifications are wearing thinner and thinner.

And if Hayden's statements are indicative of the mindset of those in the upper echelon of US intelligence, it's more than simply chilling. It's horrifying.

Filed Under: ed snowden, michael hayden, mike rogers, nsa, nsa surveillance, targeted killing

Former NSA Boss Hayden Says Snowden Likely To Become An Alcoholic Because He's 'Troubled' And 'Morally Arrogant'

from the funny-you-should-say-that dept

The Washington Post's Andrea Peterson has some more incredible quotes from former NSA and CIA boss Michael Hayden, who seems to have a way of saying exactly the wrong thing if he's trying to reassure those who are worried about excessive government surveillance. First up, he continues to attack anyone who feels otherwise. The same guy who insisted that people who were concerned about NSA surveillance were shut-ins who couldn't get laid has apparently decided that he can determine Ed Snowden's mental makeup from afar, despite never having spoken to the guy. He can also predict his future:

Hayden predicted a bleak future for Snowden. Describing the former NSA contractor as a "defector," Hayden also called him "a troubled young man -- morally arrogant to a tremendous degree -- but a troubled young man."

Hayden further compared Snowden's prospects to those of defectors during the Cold War, saying, "I suspect he will end up like most of the rest of the defectors who went to the old Soviet Union: Isolated, bored, lonely, depressed -- and most of them ended up alcoholics."

Of course, Snowden didn't defect. He was more or less forced into Russia by the US pulling his passport. And we should look at who's throwing around claims of being "morally arrogant" here.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the talk, Hayden insisted that the intelligence community wanted to play within "the box" explaining what's legal, and said: "you're going to have to decide where the box is that you want your security services to work in." Of course, when Peterson questioned him on how the public could (a) understand where the box is today in order to have that debate and (b) suggest ways to move the box, Hayden didn't seem that interested:

When I asked how the public could tell security agencies where "the box" should be if they don't have the details of where it is now, Hayden responded, "In a perfect world I would brief the House and Senate intelligence committees and be done with it" because the more scrutiny surveillance programs receive the harder he believes it is to do their jobs.

At this point, you get the feeling Hayden must have started to wonder how Peterson could have possibly gotten out of her "internet shut-in" basement and braved the outside world to go see him speak.

Oh and then there's the bit where he insists that the public is actually fine with NSA snooping... just like they're fine with targeted killings. Except, what he really meant by "the public" was "American Presidents."

At one point, Hayden also compared NSA snooping programs to other controversial programs that he says have been accepted by the public. He pointed to targeted killing, which he says two presidents have now signed off on "with some degree of enthusiasm."

Note to Hayden from the internet shut-in community: having a President "enthusiastically" support his own ability to authorize spying on everyone and killing people overseas is, uh, somewhat different than suggesting the public supports it.

Filed Under: ed snowden, michael hayden

Former NSA Boss Claims Terrorists Use Gmail, Anonymity Is Awful And The US Built The Internet, So Of Course It Should Spy On It

from the tone-deaf dept

Michael Hayden is the former NSA and CIA boss, whose claim to fame is that he oversaw the illegal warrantless wiretapping of Americans under President George W. Bush. He's pretty consistently managed to stick his foot in his mouth concerning everything regarding the latest NSA leaks every time he speaks. He claimed that Ed Snowden was worse than every American revealed spy in history (despite the fact that, unlike actual spies like Benedict Arnold and the Rosenbergs, Snowden focused on informing the public, rather than selling secrets to our enemies). He brushed off Snowden's supporters as internet shut-ins who can't get laid. Though, perhaps he should talk to a geek or two, because he doesn't even understand what data mining means.

His latest is no better. On Sunday he gave a speech where he revealed that (he claims) terrorists love Gmail:

"Gmail is the preferred Internet service provider of terrorists worldwide," presumably meaning online service rather than the actual provider of Internet service. He added: "I don't think you're going to see that in a Google commercial, but it's free, it's ubiquitous, so of course it is."

Of course, if this is true (and seeing as he hasn't been in the government for a while, I'm not sure how he'd actually know that), it would seem like that statement alone is much worse than anything that Snowden revealed, because General Hayden basically just told every terrorist "don't use Gmail any more, because we're on to you." Of course, from all reports so far of the way that Al Qaeda brass communicates, it appears they learned that lesson since before Gmail existed. It seems highly unlikely that any sophisticated terrorist would be using a service like Gmail, since it's long been suspected that the US government monitored it anyway.

Hayden didn't stop there. He also flat out admitted that the US was "militarizing" the internet (though he called it the web), which is another thing that the government has been trying to deny until Hayden just blurted it out.

Hayden also conceded that the United States. "could be fairly charged with the militarization of the World Wide Web."

Hayden also reveals the rather ridiculous sense of entitlement that the intelligence community has towards snooping on the internet. He argues, effectively, that since the internet rose out of a US government project, then of course it should be able to spy on everything on it.

"We built it here, and it was quintessentially American," he said, adding that partially due to that, much of traffic goes through American servers where the government "takes a picture of it for intelligence purposes."

Of course, that totally ignores the status of the internet today, and how much has changed since the old ARPANET days. Also, as the Washington Post notes, having intelligence community officials say ridiculous crap like that is more or less telling the rest of the world (and many Americans) to stop doing business with American internet companies. Is whatever minor intel the NSA picks up really worth losing many billions to the US economy?

And, of course, Hayden once again made it clear that if he had his way, the NSA would be able to track anything and everything, because anonymity is bad.

At one point, Hayden expressed a distaste for online anonymity, saying "The problem I have with the Internet is that it's anonymous."

Given that, I'd like to challenge Michael Hayden to release his browser history from the past three months. After all, I'm sure he wouldn't want anyone to think he's a hypocrite who surfed the web anonymously, now would he?

Filed Under: anonymity, email, internet, michael hayden, nsa, nsa surveillance, terrorists

Profile Of NSA Boss General Keith Alexander Reveals: He Wants All The Data, And He Doesn't Care About The Law

from the not-a-good-combination dept

Shane Harris has an explosive and fascinating profile of NSA boss General Keith Alexander for Foreign Policy magazine. You should read the whole thing, but I wanted to highlight a few key points that are really kind of eye-opening.

• His predecessor, General Michael Hayden, thought Alexander is a loose cannon who doesn't understand or care about the law. One of Alexander's strongest defenders since the Snowden leaks came out has been Hayden -- the guy who called NSA critics just a bunch of internet shut-ins who can't get laid. However, the FP report suggests that Hayden felt Alexander was dangerous, not right for the job at the top of the NSA, and not clued in to basic legal realities. Specifically, after 9/11, Alexander (at the time in charge of the Army's Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM)) tried to get the NSA to hand over its firehose of data directly to him to analyze. But that's a no, no.

  By law, the NSA had to scrub intercepted communications of most references to U.S. citizens before those communications can be shared with other agencies. But Alexander wanted the NSA "to bend the pipe towards him," says one of the former officials, so that he could siphon off metadata, the digital records of phone calls and email traffic that can be used to map out a terrorist organization based on its members' communications patterns.
  
  "Keith wanted his hands on the raw data. And he bridled at the fact that NSA didn't want to release the information until it was properly reviewed and in a report," says a former national security official. "He felt that from a tactical point of view, that was often too late to be useful."
  
  Hayden thought Alexander was out of bounds. INSCOM was supposed to provide battlefield intelligence for troops and special operations forces overseas, not use raw intelligence to find terrorists within U.S. borders.

  This is fairly incredible, considering that Hayden was the guy who oversaw the infamous illegal warrantless wiretapping program under President Bush. The fact that he felt Alexander wanted to go way too far in spying on Americans should say something.
  
  
• General Alexander apparently has no problem playing word games to justify what he wants. This shouldn't be a surprise given all we've seen so far, but from the article, you realize that this isn't just someone trying to keep secret things secret with word games, but rather someone who has a rather Machiavellian outlook on things. He decides what he wants to do, and then he'll come up with the justification for it.

  "He said at one point that a lot of things aren't clearly legal, but that doesn't make them illegal," says a former military intelligence officer who served under Alexander at INSCOM.

  That's not something that someone trying to stay inside the law says. That's someone trying to stretch the law to do his personal will.
  
  
• General Alexander is obsessed with collecting every bit of data possible, with little concern for the legal issues associated with such a desire. This one isn't new. We'd already seen that Alexander's infamous mantra was "collect it all," but the FP article shows this going to ridiculous lengths:

  "Hayden's attitude was 'Yes, we have the technological capability, but should we use it?' Keith's was 'We have the capability, so let's use it,'" says the former intelligence official who worked with both men.

  Later in the article, someone who worked with General Alexander notes that he believes the legal justifications for any data collection can come later:

  "If he becomes the repository for all that data, he thinks the resources and authorities will follow."

  Having the capability doesn't automatically make it legal. General Alexander seems to think that point is subservient to his own desire to collect all the data, incorrectly believing that the way you find the necessary needles is to collect more haystacks.
  
  
• General Alexander gets so overwhelmed by big data that he starts finding needles in those haystacks where none really exist. This is kind of the key point. The profile makes it clear that General Alexander loves digging through big data, but seems unable to recognize that what comes out of looking at a giant data set isn't automatically true. Multiple instances are discussed of him claiming connections where none actually existed.

  "He had all these diagrams showing how this guy was connected to that guy and to that guy," says a former NSA official who heard Alexander give briefings on the floor of the Information Dominance Center. "Some of my colleagues and I were skeptical. Later, we had a chance to review the information. It turns out that all [that] those guys were connected to were pizza shops."
  
  A retired military officer who worked with Alexander also describes a "massive network chart" that was purportedly about al Qaeda and its connections in Afghanistan. Upon closer examination, the retired officer says, "We found there was no data behind the links. No verifiable sources. We later found out that a quarter of the guys named on the chart had already been killed in Afghanistan."
  
  [....] Under Alexander's leadership, one of the agency's signature analysis tools was a digital graph that showed how hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people, places, and events were connected to each other. They were displayed as a tangle of dots and lines. Critics called it the BAG -- for "big ass graph" -- and said it produced very few useful leads.

  Loving big data, but not being aware of its limitations is not a good sign -- especially for someone who's trying to always collect even more data.
  
  
• General Alexander's fascination with big data was in part driven by a "mad scientist" friend who followed Alexander from job to job implementing massive projects that were done poorly and with little planning, and rarely did anything useful. To get the full extent of this, you really need to read the article, but the details of James Heath and Alexander's reliance on him -- as well as his inability to actually get stuff working -- are fairly incredible. Here's just one example, and there are many more.

  Heath was at Alexander's side for the expansion of Internet surveillance under the PRISM program. Colleagues say it fell largely to him to design technologies that tried to make sense of all the new information the NSA was gobbling up. But Heath had developed a reputation for building expensive systems that never really work as promised and then leaving them half-baked in order to follow Alexander on to some new mission.
  
  "He moved fairly fast and loose with money and spent a lot of it," the retired officer says. "He doubled the size of the Information Dominance Center and then built another facility right next door to it. They didn't need it. It's just what Heath and Alexander wanted to do." The Information Operations Center, as it was called, was underused and spent too much money, says the retired officer. "It's a center in search of a customer."

  This is what happens when you have a combination of people who believe very strongly in one key point -- "big data solves all" -- and then provide them with massive amounts of money and almost no real oversight. It's a "kids in a candy store" mentality that is a serious problem when you realize what kind of "candy" is available.
  
  
• He's somewhat oblivious to the reasons why people are concerned about all of this, because he thinks of himself as a trustworthy guy. This fits with previous things we've heard about General Alexander. He's genuinely perplexed by why people are so upset about this, believing strongly in two things: that he's protecting the safety of Americans, so they should thank him for that, and on top of that, that since he's trustworthy, there's nothing to worry about. This is incredibly naive.

  "You'll never find evidence that Keith sits in his office at lunch listening to tapes of U.S. conversations," says a former NSA official. "But I think he has a little bit of naivete about this controversy. He thinks, 'What's the problem? I wouldn't abuse this power. Aren't we all honorable people?'...."

  This fits with our earlier article about how he appears to be focused on intentions over actions. And, to some extent you can actually understand how the incentives in his job lead him in exactly that way. He knows that if there's another terrorist attack, he'll take some of the blame for it. Given that, it's no wonder that protecting the 4th Amendment or the legal rights of Americans is low on the priority list. He doesn't get any credit for that. He only loses credit if there's an attack under his watch.

Again the entire profile is worth reading -- including the bits about how he's apparently obsessed with the stupid puzzle game Bejeweled Blitz, and how he once hired a Hollywood set designer to make his base of operations look just like the bridge of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek (complete with wooshing doors) to better "wow" politicians who came to visit. The overall profile is fascinating to read, but scary, because it suggests someone with little actual concern for the Constitution, a strong (if faulty) belief in his own capabilities, and immense power. That's a bad combination, even if he doesn't have "nefarious" intent.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, keith alexader, michael hayden, nsa, nsa surveillance