POWERLINE: Hayden Delivers Impassioned Defense of NSA

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012915.php ^ | January 23, 2006

[meema]

Great post, Howlin. I didn't catch it all this a.m., so I'll enjoy reading this a little later.
Also, it should be on c-span, Real Player.

[Howlin]

Speech
Intelligence Strategy Against Terrorism
National Press Club, Newsmaker
Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
ID: 190835 - 01/23/2006 - 1:05 - $45.00



Hayden, Michael V., Principal Deputy Director, Office of National Intelligence




General Hayden talks about intelligence community and National Security Agency efforts to defend the U.S. against terrorism.


C-SPAN 1

[Howlin]

Whoops:

08:24 PM EST
1:05
Speech
Intelligence Strategy Against Terrorism
National Press Club, Newsmaker
Michael V. Hayden , Office of National Intelligence

[leadpenny]

Howlin, go here and you can watch it via RealPlayer. I saw it this morning. It was great!

http://www.c-span.org/VideoArchives.asp?z1=&PopupMenu_Name=Defense/Security&CatCodePairs=Issue,DESE;

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, Principal Dpty. Dir. of Nat'l Intelligence
General Michael V. Hayden, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, talks about what the intelligence community and the NSA are doing to protect the country.
1/23/2006: WASHINGTON, DC: 1 hr.

[Howlin]

Okay. I sure will. Thanks for the link.

[Howlin]

GEN. HAYDEN: I talked to the NSA staff on Friday. The NSA inspector general reports to me, as of last Friday, from the inception of this program through last Friday night, not a single employee of the National Security Agency has addressed a concern about this program to the NSA IG. I should also add that no member of the NSA workforce who has been asked to be included in this program has responded to that request with anything except enthusiasm. I don't know what you're talking about.

[leadpenny]

You should have this made into a Live thread for the 8:40 showing. General Hayden lays it out there and takes no prisoners.

[leadpenny]

Sorry, I meant the 8:24 showing.

[ErnBatavia]

I just had to click into this thread to confirm that I hadn't gone bonkers and that this referred to Tom Hayden...

[Howlin]

Oh, maybe I should have been clearer?

[pollyannaish]

THANK YOU! Excellent post Howlin.

Marking for future reference.

[Peach]

I thought the whistleblower to the NYT was a former NSA employee? So he didn't complain about the program to his employees but just ran right to the newspaper?

[Mo1]

not a single employee of the National Security Agency has addressed a concern about this program to the NSA IG

Ummmm .. Was Conyers star witness even employed at FISA??

[okie01]

Every day, in every way, the media demonstrate the accuracy of my tagline.

[Sam Hill]

"not a single employee of the National Security Agency has addressed a concern about this program to the NSA IG."

Why would they. It's not illegal if it is done at the direction of the POTUS via the AG.

BTW, I hope everyone was aware of how carefully Hayden chose his words.

Bottom line, we're not talking about "eavesdropping." Nobody has time to listen, tape, translate a bunch of damn Arabic. This is time sensitive stuff here, hence the desire to skip going before the FISA court.

We're talking SIGINT (Signals Intelligence).

As Hayden said, NSA was using the same technology/technique as is used to decide where to drop a 500 pound bomb.

It's location, location, location.

Our one party media doesn't know what they are talking about here. As usual. And sadly, neither do a lot of folks on the right.

It's not eavesdropping. It's monitoring. There's a big difference.

[Enchante]

That's how weasels of the left operate! Why would they trouble themselves with any official complaint that they know has no basis in reason or law...... much better (from the perspective of leftist weasels) to utilize the NY Slimes idiots to launch a public attack that is very difficult to counter without revealing all sorts of classified information???

[Sam Hill]

"I thought the whistleblower to the NYT was a former NSA employee? So he didn't complain about the program to his employees but just ran right to the newspaper?"

Tice had been bounced out before any of this hit the news.

He complained (probably to the IG) about the co-worker he thought was a Chi-Com agent.

But he only talked to the press about his outrage at the AQ monitoring.

Odds are, he didn't even know it was going on until he read about it in the NYT.

[leadpenny]

"Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency"

BTW, he's now a full General and I believe he is still the director of NSA. The other hat he wears is Negroponte's deputy.

[Enchante]

"I testified in open session to the House Intel Committee in April of the year 2000 [DURING THE CLINTONISTA ADMINISTRATION]. At the time, I created some looks of disbelief when I said that if Osama bin Laden crossed the bridge from Niagara Falls, Ontario to Niagara Falls, New York, there were provisions of U.S. law that would kick in, offer him protections and affect how NSA could now cover him. At the time, I was just using this as some of sort of stark hypothetical; 17 months later, this is about life and death."

This is one of the most important statements in the entire talk: here we have that Gen. Hayden, 17 months before 9/11, told the weasels of Congress in OPEN SESSION (and thereby the MSM and the Clintonistas, as well, if any were paying attention) that the NSA was severely handicapped in its ability to track Osama Bin Laden (or by implication any of this followers) and could track virtually nothing once they entered the USA. If anyone had drawn the appropriate implications and taken the appropriate steps, as Gen. Hayden indicates elsewhere in the talk, the 9/11 plotters would have been thwarted. Sooooo, the clear implication of Gen. Hayden's remarks is that everyone in the Clinton administration, Congress, and the MSM was put on notice by him 17 MONTHS before 9/11 of a serious type of vulnerability to terrorist infiltration of the USA, and nothing was done..... smoke that in your pipe, Richard Clarke, Algore, and other mindless critics!!