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Former Head of NSA Calls For Obama To Reject NSA Commission Recommendations
An anonymous reader writes that USA Today reports "Retired general Michael Hayden ... called on President Obama Monday to ... reject many of the recommendations of the commission he appointed to rein in NSA surveillance ... 'President Obama now has the burden of simply doing the right thing,' ... 'And I think some of the right things with regard to the commission's recommendations are not the popular things. They may not poll real well right now. They'll poll damn well after the next attack ...' ... The commission ... said the recommendations were designed to increase transparency, accountability and oversight at the NSA. Hayden ... oversaw the launch of some of the controversial programs ... He defended them as effective and properly overseen by congressional intelligence committees and a special court. 'Right now, since there have been no abuses and almost all the court decisions on this program have held that it's constitutional, I really don't know what problem we're trying to solve by changing how we do this,' he said."
He has no incentive to change anything. How it 'polls' is irrelevant. Someone with 2016 aspirations will need to make this their issue.
They'll poll damn well after the next attack
The next attack will happen with or without illegal, unconstitutional domestic spying. I don't want you magic tiger protection rocks sir.
Silence is a state of mime.
Painful truths:
NSA workers are not traitors that should be killed. Please look at the scum who cut off children's heads in CAR to understand what real tyranny is.
NSA will be changed but domestic surveillance will probably go to the DOJ (who has a stellar track record)
This has all happened before 20, 40, 70, and I think 150 years ago. It will probably happen again.
Now, please, can we talk about changes without devolving into fake revolutionaries? You're pissed off. We all get it. Now let's do something useful other than scream.
..who was on guard duty before 9/11.... why should anyone listen to him?
He argues that it is legal because it is useful. Using that logic, I should be allowed use claymore mines to protect my property from intruders. Indiscriminate, illegal but probably effective. He should remember, if you subvert the constitution, you corrode the very fabric of the nation. We're becoming just another regime.
I fail to see how failure to prevent an attack via NSA dragnet surveilance could poll well.
I really like the part about "there have been no abuses". Perhaps Hayden would like to tell the US public the truth. Let's see how long it takes before he gets a bullet to the face, let alone a prison sentence.
Scumbags.
[quote]They may not poll real well right now. They'll poll damn well after the next attack ...'[/quote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_probability
In this comment "Right now, since there have been no abuses and almost all the court decisions on this program have held that it's constitutional, I really don't know what problem we're trying to solve by changing how we do this" the key word is... ALMOST.
I'm not an America, although I am a citizen of one of the 5eyes - the one with a fundamentally criminal past.
Freedom is about being about being able to live your life as you choose. Freedom is about disagreeing with other peoples' choices as to how they live their life, yet accepting that choice, as long as it doesn't to detrimentally affect yours.
"O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"
Question mark is very well placed. The question mark was in the positive for around 200 years, however I think it is conclusive now. The answer is "Nope."
There is no question about America now about being home of the free and the brave. Terrorism won, because terrorism is about causing terror, and therefore ridiculous levels of measures against it.
(heh, this post will probably get me on the NSA list, but I'm probably already there anyway.)
NSA/TSA//WTF-SA This guy is presupposing NSA is going to be able to stop an attack, assuming anyone is planning one. The only results they have to show are nulls - "All these horrible things didn't happen because we were watching! What horrible things? We can't tell you. It's secret. But truly, they didn't happen. Remember, all that bad stuff that didn't happen? That was all us! So we don't need anyone to watch us, just trust us. We won't turn on the webcam on your teenagers laptop, we pinkie-swear!"
The record of prevented attacks, according to the official report, is zero. The surveillance programs the NSA runs have prevented no attacks. They have, however, fundamentally undermined our Constitution and the entire rule of law in the United States of America. The citizenry has been watching, stunned, while the Congress, Whitehouse, and courts in DC have been wiping their collective behind with our foundational document, and are now looking at each other, waiting to see who's gonna pick up the gun and put the mad dog down. The criminals in DC and Wall Street misread the apparent lack of reaction with acquiescence or agreement. It's not. It's the entire mass of the country, who already have their hands full with many, many deep problems, discovering this massive systemic betrayal and trying to process what the best course of action is. If DC does not act now to channel things into productive reform, they will explode to the detriment of all, but especially to the detriment of DC and their masters on Wall Street.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
NSA will be changed but domestic surveillance will probably go to the DOJ (who has a stellar track record)
Stellar track record?!
DOJ? YOu mean the FBI who were WORSE because not only did they spy, bu they actually have the guns to do something about it.
Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was being spied upon and many times falsely imprisoned for ...wait for it ... preaching peaceful protest.
Oh no! Someone who's preaching peace is such a threat to the US of A!
Even though John Lennon was never a citizen, he was spied upon for the same reasons.
And let's not forget all the abuses that Hoover committed when he used the FBI like the Stazi.
And as far as comparing us with folks who chop people's heads off, you are comparing us with a third world shithole and if things keep going the way they are going, we will end up that way.
Things won't change though because we the people get sucked into bullshit distraction issues like: abortion, gay marriage, "when life begins", who goes to church and what church, and other bullshit that is completely irrelevant to a functioning Republic.
"They'll poll damn well after the next attack"
That kind of situation always reminds me of Puzo's Fourth K. The right dose of sloppiness and the attack happens.
"After the next attack"
Wait a second - you mean that you admit the NSA is not able to prevent the attacks? OK, so explain again why it is a necessary, nay, "vital" government agency?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"They may not poll real well right now. They'll poll damn well after the next attack ..."
So... these things aren't popular now... but the next time they fail to stop an attack... Americans will be glad the NSA was here to fail to stop the attack?
The sad part is he's probably right, the public actually is that stupid.
He's right in one way. It's probably not going to change.
And then he pulls the boogie man out of his pocket.
"The next attack."
"The next attack."
So we're supposed to just huddle up in a corner and live in fear for the rest of forever. Just so that, MAYBE, some day, they catch another underpants bomber?
Uhm...
Not to put too fine a point on that, FUCK NO!
At some point, reality sets in and people need to realize that The Real World (not the stupid "reality TV show") is NOT a safe place. And NO amount of watching will curtail EVERY attempt.
Nor will throwing away our rights like a hot potato make us any safer.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Looking at it from the outside, i.e not being a US citizen:
1. You piss of everybody else on the planet, so do not expect any goodwill.
2. There were abuses, please do google loveint.
3. Snowden walked ot of NSA with *all* their goodies, so how says that that did not happen before ? He was just the first to go public with the abuses.
4. How can any US citizen still talk about the "land of the free", that is totally ridiculous and hypocrite at the same time.
5. You do have the best democracy that money can buy
A central agency that can protect the people against major threats is all well and good, but a population that can protect themselves against everyday threats is BETTER.
Me thinks the former NSA director is missing the forest for the trees.
Since many of these atrocities started on his watch. He is responsible for untold abuse of power.
No sir I dont like it.
As far back as 911, professional terrorist knew enough not to any sort of electronic communications and the NSA knew it. Yet they still spied on us. Why? Because it is a powerful tool to suppress and blackmail political enemies and the press. In addition it is useful for manipulating the markets.
is why I have not had an elephant knock my fence down. The evidence is there - my fences have stood strong after I replaced them in the gales a couple of years ago. If I were to cut the tree down I would run the risk of damaged fences; it is far safer to keep the tree.
Likewise: we know that if the NSA had not been snooping then there would have been worse attacks than the Boston bombers, etc. They just have to deny their achievements to protect their effectiveness. If they are reined in they will loudly tell everyone how it could have been prevented when the next attack happens.
(The fact that I live in urban England is surely irrelevant on the absence of elephants in my garden.)
"Right now, since there have been no abuses..."
NSA employee spied on nine women without detection
NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds
No abuses, General?
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
By my count, more folks (including dozens of children) have been slaughtered in recent years by young American men who were clearly deranged, than by any well-coordinated "terrorist" attack. Where is the POTUS commission on that?
Doesn't LOVEINT count?
Even if it doesn't, that's not the point.
I think we can all agree that having these sorts of communications records is a despot's wet dream. The fact that it hasn't been abused yet is immaterial. It's too tempting a tool for those with the wrong motives.
They'll poll damn well after the next attack ...
And they'll STILL be wrong.
Just mount the next attack. That'll teach them!
It's just for the Good of the USA!
This would all be new and innovative... oh, wait.
need to be hung by the neck until dead-dead-dead.
Fuck you and your fear, uncertainty, and doubt, Michael Hayden. Freedom is much more important than safety. I will sacrifice safety for freedom. And yes, I know you know who I am despite posting AC.
"They'll poll damn well after the next attack"?
Wait... by NSA logic, if there's a NEXT attack, doesn't that mean all the surveillance didn't work anyway? Shouldn't they poll even worse after that?
Are you threatening us?
Sounds like a threat, like he knows there will be an attack. Perhaps he is correct, because he has inside info.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
This is what... happens when... we let Captain James T Kirk... submit stories to Slashdot...
"far safer and privacy is far more secured with NSA holding the data than some third party."
This data is not safe for long term storage ANYWHERE.
Brave Sir Robin ran away. ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!")
They'll poll damn well after the next attack
You mean the next attack that will happen because Mr. Hayden's post-9/11 security measures were utter shit that failed to stop it? The NSA has quite a racket going for it. During peacetime they're "working effectively", during an emergency they simply didn't have the resources.
and no successes either....it seems the NSA is an expensive boondoggle (insert link to pics of Keith Alexander's Star Trek Bridge) and should therefore be culled to 10% of the current size.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
'I really don't know what problem we're trying to solve by changing how we do this,' he said.
We know you don't, pudding. Now go sit down and be quiet.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Problem is, there's no polling in the police state which this sort of uncontrolled surveillance enables.
Why do I get the feeling that an NSA-sponsored, black-flag "terorist attack" is imminent?
Is a creep.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
Hayden: 'And I think some of the right things with regard to the commission's recommendations are not the popular things. They may not poll real well right now. They'll poll damn well after the next attack ...'
So, appeal to emotion. We can safely disregard your message then since it is, by definition, not well thought out.
I am not a crackpot.
Anyone think that we have anyone in a position powerful enough to reign in the NSA that doesn't have enough dirt in their past to end their career?
I wonder if this idiot general realize people are beginning to be more afraid of the nsa than terrorists. And I would say the level of incompetence the nsa has shown in being able to manage this enormous power with a single individual able to walk off with their intelligence crown jewels indicates no one should have these types of power. More innocent people are at risk from nsa and government incompetence than anything they think they are doing. The tsa is security theater not adding any actual security, and now the nsa is now is showing a level of intelligence theater whose only value may be their agents abusing to spy on their girlfriends.
And in every one of those places, the NSA has no (well is not supposed to anyways) purview. Domestic issues are meant to be handled by the FBI.
So, you'd be OK with it, if it were the FBI instead of the NSA, push-installing remote control spyware to everybody's iPhone without a warrant?
Fuck you. All your warrentless and baseless wiretapping of the entire world has left you awash in data that you don't even have the machine or manpower to sift through, let alone distill into actionable intel. The NSA has continued the grand tradition of our intelligence services not sharing information with each other, and that's how YOU FAILED TO STOP BOSTON, despite one guy being on a watch list, and the other guy leaving a very sloppy Facebook trail. The NSA's system is tailor-made for abuse, and indeed those abuses have already been pandemic. LOVEINT has already happened. Political persecution (of Bill Binney, Jesselyn Radack, Julia Davis, Russ Tice, Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, Ed Snowden, and countless others) has already happened. All of those things are public. Your internal systems are so poorly designed that Ed Snowden, a low level contractor, had access to the crown jewels. HINT: The Chinese also have contractors working for you. We need you to do a good job in protecting America, so cut out this spying on the world shit, and fucking do your jobs. That means gathering SIGINT on unfriendly nations and actors abroad, delegating domestic surveillance to the FBI, and SHARING YOUR GODDAMN INTEL WITH OTHER AGENCIES. Get to it.
The right thing to do would be to level every NSA facility across the country. Discussions have their place, when they fail violence works pretty well too.
Captcha: intent lol
During the interview General Michael Hayen stated. "...and the only thing that people like me wish is: that when we do these kinds of decisions, that we base it on facts". Well, here are some facts for the POTUS to consider:
FACT - U.S. Intellegence agencies ignored credible tips that could have stopped 9/11 (Flight Instructor).
FACT - U.S. Intellegence agencies ignored credible tips that could have stopped the failed underwear bomber (Father).
FACT - U.S. Intellegence agencies ignored credible tips that could have stopped the Boston Marathon Bombings (Boston Murder / Russia).
FACT - Countries across the world are ceasing to use technology products with U.S. origin (Cisco, Google, etc), damaging the economy.
FACT - U.S. (CIA specifically) drone strikes kill innocent civilians and create more enemies of the U.S.
FACT - U.S. citizens killed by drone strikes are not provided due process.
FACT - Documents released by Snowden indicate that FISA judges found NSA activities unconstitutional.
In that light, General Michael Hayden and his ilk should be arrested for treason and war crimes. This may include members of the current and former exective branches (Read "Dirty Wars").
I agree with you; the problem is, how do you explain that to the families of the victims of Boston, Fort Hood, and 911? Many, if not most of them campaigned for putting the Patriot Act in place, and for beefing up internal and external security. They did so out of grief, anger, and trauma-induced xenophobia. How, as a society, do we counter that? Because in my experience it's nearly impossible to use reason with someone who's near out-of-their-mind with grief, anger, and a suddenly-awakened fear of strangers that's horrifically melded to PTSD.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
I find it comical that quoting the guy who instituted unconstitutional spying is viewed as a good source as to whether or not it should be allowed.
This is a very good troll, and it's a good thought-provoking post.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
it's cool and hip to demonize those in power. Our fellow posters have a marked tendency to come on here and bloviate about how cruel, stupid, and corrupt everyone else is. Caught up in the venting of the toxic fumes emanating from their ego, they never once stop to ask if they themselves would be any better, or consider that the vast majority of our government is indeed composed of good, honest, tax-paying citizens, who get up every morning resolved to do the best they can, just like the rest of us.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
I would be asking how many attacks all these `counter terrorist activities` have caused...
He's solidly anti-American and hates the Constitution and the rule of law.
He [Michael Hayden] is currently a principal at the Chertoff Group, a security consultancy co-founded by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Hayden also serves as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Mason University School of Public Policy and was elected to the Board of Directors of Motorola Solutions effective January 4, 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hayden_(general)
This article is from a mainstream source, USA Today, which might be the most widely circulated periodical in the nation... and this "Hayden" says what?
Reacting reflexively to irrational human impulses is not good leadership. What Hayden is talking about is called "taking advantage of the public to further political goals."
Bullshit. A flat out lie. Most of the data collection the NSA does is an abuse simply by its nature, and that's ignoring the blatant abuses we already know about.
What? All one out of two cases? Another flat out lie.
This is a propaganda piece, plain and simple. Grease the peons for the next move no matter how toxic the lubrication. Enzensberger said the "consent industry" was the most important of the twentieth century. And so it is in the twenty-first as well.
If you have a brain and a proper education, you will see through this swill immediately. Unfortunately, the nature of the media machine and the ignorance of the masses will mean this story gets eaten up by many of our more gullible brothers. Consider the peons greased.
I saw a report (don't have the citation on me) that said that TSA screenings have caused more people to drive instead of fly, resulting in 500 more deaths per year.
He's so far down the rabbit hole he doesn't see the sun anymore.
Its too bad. He's so compromised all the oaths he swore to uphold that its frankly irredeemable.
We need to reevaluate everything.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
What world is this guy living in? Just the other week there were numerous articles documenting pervasive abuse of the surveillance abilities to monitor love interests. Last week a Federal district court judge ruled the surveillance was unconstitutional.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
'They may not poll real well right now. They'll poll damn well after the next attack ... Obviously after the attack we have planned for October.. Err I mean they have planned, or might plan, Wait, stop recording everything I say!!'
Um, yea' that's about right.
That's what those swine in the shiny black building know will work.
You can be sure they have already got plans for such an event.
It looked like Hayden was saying the US might need to create another 'Terrorist' incident just to show us how right they(the NSA) are.
Uh-huh, we'll sure regret wanting freedom over "protection", i mean "security", once he shows us how wrong we are.
You can smell the fear that the fed govt has. And it's not the muslims they're concerned with. It's us.
I would love to ask him if he would be willing to wear a streaming webcam 24/7 since privacy isn't important.
In other news: The American people call for the news media to reject every word spoken or written by Michael Hayden from this day forth forevermore.
Why is Slashdot continuing to give a bully pulpit to someone who's proven he's so out of touch with basic guaranteed constitutional freedoms that this story should have been chucked to the recycle bin where it belongs?
(Witness yesterday's story.)
People that claimed to need to stockpile ammunition to protect themselves from the government are looking sane these days, and correct. They may be all that protects US citizens from total government control of our lives. Obama and company: please get your act together and protect us, not spy on us. This is not a game.
So is the NSA former head saying the NSA will allow or create a terrorist attack on citizens to create pro-spying legislation, just like gunwalker / fast and furious was supposed to do?
2 airliners, 3 buildings.
The third, Building 7 came down in what looks like a controlled demolition, collapsing neatly into its own footprint. That requires all 64 support columns to be cut within milliseconds of each other. Fires on the 5th/7th floors can't do that.
No steel-framed high rise has ever collapsed because of fire.
So some miracle happened? Or the laws of physics continued to work normally and our gov is very anxious to cover that up?
Look, what they are not admitting to you, but is known by any decent security operative, is that the vast and overwhelming majority of threats are in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and to a lesser extent Afghanistan.
Most actionable intel has been from those places. As in 95 percent.
None of this should allow them to spy on us and quarter troops in our cell phones and computers in our homes and on our persons. Without a specific and limited warrant.
The tech to read your keyboard and wireless has existed for many many decades. You're only now finding out about it and the backdoor hacks we built into things.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
How about the problem of the US effectively putting themselves on the other side of the barricade, opposite to the rest of the free world and most of their closest allies?
They're just trying to shuffle things. In the process it will most likely become worse.
McCarthy was right all along.
So it's the old 'the ends justifies the means' argument. That makes it acceptable to drag law-abiding citizens before the committee of un-american activities, deny their second amendment rights and jail them when they stand-up for those rights. There was a movie about it but I forget the title.
McCarthy was a pocket dictator who thought he had a free ride with "OMG look, communists". But when the rest of government tired of his perpetual witch-hunts, he denounced his supporters and the US military.
Comic books were also declared un-american. Was McCarthy right to use the government to magnify what one teenager might do somewhere, sometime?
Well if the government can't use all that spying to predict who will attack, it is a pointless activity. The NSA and the white house insist that blanket spying works. Many posters on slashdot disagree because people keep dying. You've just reached the same conclusion by noticing the limits of spying: If one doesn't have a well-defined target, it is impossible to achieve a desirable outcome.
The NSA should be shutdown and all the data destroyed. The US Government can establish a new intelligence agency which begins with a clean slate and a clearly defined set of operational parameters that cannot change with the threat du jour. If the head the the agency lies about anything the person is charged with treason and summarily executed at dawn; no trial necessary because the evidence will already be on the record. Edward Snowden should be allowed to return to the USA without fear of legal/illegal action by the Government and hailed as a hero for daring to question the integrity of the NSA whilst being proven right.
President Barak H. Obama has been a worse than President George W. Bush and was a substantial achievement. The global community views the United States of America as a parasitic organism intent on infecting every region on the planet. President Obama failed to implement any of the "Hope and Change" platform yet smiles and laughs and takes selfies at the memorial service of one of the greatest men to have walked the face of the Earth - Nelson Mandela.
Maybe Duck Commander can air an episode called "Hunting the Lame Duck" featuring the Robertson's hunting the Obama Administration. No quota limits to worry about Uncle Si.
"They'll poll damn well after the next attack ..."
Sounds like a terroristic threat to me . . .
... you goddamned moron. What exactly do you think happens when someone shows up at the ER with a life-threatening condition they can't afford to pay for?
Obama and his Junta are preparing expansion.
Hillary Rodham Clinton welcomes expansion of domestic espionage and erosion of U.S.A. citizen privacy and rights under local, state, Federal, Constitutional and International Laws.
The harvested skins of U.S.A. citizens will decorate the lamps of Hillary Rodham Clinton's Oval Office, Nazi Style.
If there's another attack, then that means all the NSA programs didn't catch it. How could they possibly poll well in that case?
He says there have been no abuses. How would we ever know? The NSA, FBI, and CIA are tight. Everything is done out of sight, covertly. Should we expect these agencies to ever make a full disclosure of what they do?
"The NSA used to be very discrete, effective and restrained."
I think you mean discreet... more to the point, the NSA mass surveillance isn't an isolated development. It's part of the general movement to automate or at least remote-control everything, from the way we do research (Google) or send messages (spam) to the way we wage wars (drones) right down to way we compile "friends" or "followers" (Facebook/Twitter). "Liking" something used to be a matter of taste. Now it's a matter of clicking an icon. So, no, I don't think the NSA is entirely to blame.
Should I read that as "we will make it happen?"
Not Secret Anymore.
It is time to purge the military-security establishment and mind-set from the NSA leadership. Bring in civilians with judicial or academic backgrounds to oversee targets and methods. No generals; no politicians.
If we the people were to utter the words: "It will poll damn well after the next attack" it would be taken as a threat. We the people would be locked up in a guantanamo bay style holding facility for terrorists that "doesn't exist".
Everything you said may well be true, but please cite your sources so that we can follow up with a minimum of extra effort.