Slashdot Mirror
Citizen Eavesdrops On Former NSA Director Michael Hayden's Phone Call
McGruber writes "The Washington Post has the news that former head of the NSA Michael Hayden took a call while on the Acela train between D.C. and Boston. Hayden was talking to a journalist 'on background', which means the reporter is not allowed to cite Hayden by name. Unfortunately for Hayden, another train passenger overhead the call and live-tweeted it. 'Mattzie continued to livetweet Hayden’s conversations slamming the Obama administration, all the while insisting that he be referred to only on background. The conversation also seemed to touch on Hayden’s time as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President George W. Bush as well. "Hayden was bragging about rendition and black sites a minute ago," Mattzie wrote. Hayden has in the past defended the use of waterboarding against detainees held in various sites around the world, and dismissed torture as a "legal term."'"
That's basically what I came to expect from Bush officials like him. I sometimes forget how bad things were.
This might help the situation. If government officials were subjected to the same scruitny and privacy violations the rest of the have-nots suffer, we might be able to straighten this train wreck of a country out.
Of course, it would be worth a lot more if we got more than someone's probably biased interpretation of one side of a phone call. Like, actual quotes would be a lot better. Even then, who knows what the questions were.
Even took a picture with him afterwards.
This is exactly what is required. We all need to out these people, all of them who work for the NSA and CIA, and subject them to constant surveillance, harassment, and ostracism. Perhaps an open source project to map and publicize the personnel of these agencies, as an exercise in democratic resistance to creeping tyranny. Heck, we can even enlist the assistance of kindly freedom-loving people around the world to ensure it will be impossible to shut down. The American government needs to understand the American people are onto them and deem them the enemies of freedom they are. Whether further, more stringent measures are required remains to be seen.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
How the heck does a former NSA director come to be talking about such things in public?
It's like fight club, you don't talk about it in front of other people.
I should think sitting on a train conducting this interview would be an epic breach of both his secrecy agreements, and his common sense.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Reporting on how our government ignores our Rights under all the amendments in the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Conventions.
Everyone is a reporter now.
Everyone.
Hit Record.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You know, if you're a former security official sitting on a train discussing this kind of stuff in the clear -- rude has ceased to apply.
It's not about privacy and politeness -- it's about being an epic asshole discussing things you shouldn't be discussing on a train with other people listening.
And if you're someone who has called torture 'a legal term', you should probably be subjected to it yourself. People who sit behind desks and play semantic games about what constitutes torture are just thugs with official badges.
In fact, those people could be called war criminals in some contexts.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Isn't it a bit rude to actively listen in on other people's conversations, even if you *can* incidentally hear them?
Congratulations! You are now starting to understand the problem of indiscriminate surveillance.
On a side note: if Hayden has nothing to hide, he should be fine with people listening in to his conversations, right?
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
His approval of waterboarding is specific to a context. It is done to enemies of his government, generally ones who are not themselves aristocrats.
He is vehemently opposed to government officials being waterboarded (his for sure, and probably rival governments as well). He would consider that an egregious offence against propriety to do such a thing.
Waterboarding him will not change his position one bit. He knows it is horrible, and that is exactly what he likes about it. That is also why he thinks it is appropriate for them but not us.
If he was suddenly stripped of power, permanently, and put in a position where he might be randomly water boarded by the authority above him, you can bet your bottom dollar he would advocate against it. But THAT will never happen, so his position will never change.
Speaking as a former Marine who *has* been waterboarded (as an exercise, not as part of an interrogation) I can say it's a thoroughly terrifying ordeal. It's probably the scariest experience I've ever had during my entire time in the Corps despite the fact that I *knew* no permanent harm was being done to me. And that's exactly why I support it. Fully. Without any reservations whatsoever. Terrifying someone's mind into complying with interrogation is orders of magnitude better than, say, ripping out fingernails, branding with hot irons, or other things that permanently damage and cripple the subject, don't you think?
And don't give me any crap about how we should just leave these people alone and they'll leave us alone. The world's too small and our ideologies are too diametrically opposed for that. Britain, France, and the U.S. tried leaving Nazi Germany alone and that didn't work out so well in the end.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Are we not allowed to think all of those are terrible, or do you just take exception to people thinking torture is a special kind of evil on par with rape?
The latter - The GP stated as much bluntly - "whatever else is true, at least we're not fucking torturing people".
Y'know, maybe Barry O has managed to drag the intelligence community kicking and screaming up to 17th century level morality. I don't believe it, but okay, lets accept the possibility.
We still know that he has killed American citizens without a trial. We know that we still have people detained without a trial (and I can't decide if this counts as worse or not, we still have people detained whom a trial exonerated but we don't dare let them go!). We know that we have political dissidents, including domestic, foreign-but-Western, and foreign-and-Arab, all hiding out with known human rights abusers rather than risk falling into American custody.
So yeah, "at least we don't torture" strikes me as a pretty damned weak statement.
Terrifying someone's mind into complying with interrogation is orders of magnitude better than, say, ripping out fingernails, branding with hot irons, or other things that permanently damage and cripple the subject, don't you think?
"Doing X is better than doing Y" is not a justification for doing X.
Ignorance is a choice
I see what you're saying, and I understand, and I agree that, objectively speaking, being waterboarded is probably 'better' than being, say, branded with hot irons.
The problem is, being tortured doesn't get people to speak truth. It gets people to speak whatever will make the hurting stop. It's not a means of information extraction. There are FAR more effective and safe ways of extracting information.
No, torture is proving a point. And it's not a point that any decent person/group should be making.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
OBSERVATION: When given the means and opportunity to make an actual audio recording of Mr. I-Listen-To-You that would have been admissibly real, capable of rendering into a complete transcript, with real historical value... instead choosing to tap out 3rd party observations.
CONCLUSION: Twitter causes brain damage.
The jury is still out on Slashdot.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
If you're recognizable and discussing something that occurred in your time as a public official in a crowded train, your expectation of anonymity is gone. I don't care whether you're a huge douchebag or not at that point.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!